


The Boy in the Ice

by D_Toska



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Angst, Anxiety Attacks, Biting, Bullying, Childhood Friends, Fist Fights, Fluff, M/M, Magical Realism, Mild Language, Mutual Pining, The dog dies. Sorry I had a canon to my head
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-12
Updated: 2018-07-17
Packaged: 2019-05-21 07:48:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 47,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14911302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/D_Toska/pseuds/D_Toska
Summary: In one part of the world, a drunk Yuri Katsuki tells a story of a boy he saw in the ice when he was a child to an enthralled audience. While in Saint Petersburg, Viktor Nikiforov, nursing a beer, disbelief, and fear, reluctantly shares a very similar story. Can bonds really be strong enough to defy logic? What happens to those holding the ends when a bond like that is broken?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Clarinda0110](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Clarinda0110/gifts).



> This fic was inspired by the art of the ever lovely Clarinda0110 for the 2018 Viktuuri reverse bang. It is complete and will update once a week until all chapters are posted. Thank you to Clarinda for also betaing this and listening to me whine for months about a nasty case of writer's block. This fic wouldn't exist without her in many ways. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!

“This is a story where reality snags on the craggy edges of dreams. I swear that everything I’m going to tell you is the truth as I know it, but maybe I don’t know anything at all.” I leaned in and set down my mug of beer one edge at a time, carefully catching the table which had become unsteady over the several mugs that had been filled and emptied over the past few hours. “Let me tell you about the boy in the ice.”

***

The first thing Yuri learned about the ice was that it was everywhere. It wasn’t just under his skates rocking back and forth under his feet like a stormy ship deck pitching his body dangerously to the edges of a plummet. It wasn’t just a single plane cluttered with people trying to navigate its unforgiving and treacherous properties alongside him. It didn’t lie passive and silent on the floor. Once he entered the rink, the ice was inescapable anywhere he went. It demanded heat from his body as payment for entering its home and carving marks upon its body through its icy hands resting on his bare cheeks. It employed the immutable gravity as its exacting teacher that missed not a single flaw in his judgment or his balance or his precision or his timing or his strength, not caring at all that every one of these was still brand new to his control. It sat heavy on his tongue and in his lungs as it took up a home inside him and went with him down the street carried in a body sweaty and flushed from exertion, confusing his own senses as to whether he was hot or cold, where it made a home for itself within his dreams upon a siren’s perch from which it dried the tears it drew with sweet songs of the possibilities of taming it. It was only natural that a force that strong could hold magic in its grip.

He pushed across the ice on blades that still seized randomly whenever his body pitched too far in any direction to get as far away from the older kids as he could. Nishigori in particular. He was always the ringleader making such thoughtful and insightful judgments to his character that the other kids took as fact.

“Hey, fatso!” Nishigori caught up to him with his lumbering, stilted strokes grating below his bellowing voice. “Stop hogging the ice. I have no room to skate with your big butt blocking it all.”

“Shut up, Nishigori! I am not blocking the ice!”

“Are too!” He swerved to the side and slammed into him, knocking him onto the ice. “See? I tried to skate and couldn’t get around your big butt.”

Tears welled up in his eyes as Nishigori taunted him with his obnoxious laugh and chants of ‘fatso.’ His fists tightened inside his mittens, and he pounded on the ice trying to keep his angry tears from letting Nishigori win.

“Hey! I saw that! Okaasan!” Yuko called out, her tiny frame holding a thundering voice that carried clear across the rink. “Nishigori’s picking on Yuri again!”

“Was not! He just fell cause he sucks at skating!”

Yuko turned to face him and stomped her skate into the ice. “Liar!”

“Nishigori! Come here!” Yuko’s mom summoned him with a voice even stronger that Yuko’s.

“But I didn’t do anything!” Nishigori whined as he skated over.

“Did too!” Yuko followed him, her heated justice countering his every protest.

Yuri swiped his mittens across his face as the bickering faded out, clearing his eyes as he stared into the ice. Silver ribbons flashed brightly in the ice reaching toward him. He cringed anticipating the tickling touch of the fluttering strands, but nothing came. The snow-bristled carvings in the ice brushed back and forth as the ice picked them up and painted strokes across its surface. Smoothing as it put down its brush, the ice revealed its self-portrait. The only color the ice added was a bit of red in its cheeks and in its eyes that blinked wide at him, a blue like the shallow waves he played in on the beach that sparkled with sunlight on hot days in the summer. How strange. He didn’t know that the ice knew what summer even looked like and stranger still that it should borrow a color holding so much warmth for its eyes. His surprise and wonder were mirrored back to him in the ice’s face above their hands insulated from touch. Slowly the ice smiled, starting carefully in the corner, and tested the expression cautiously as it moved across the fresh surface.

Yuri returned the cautious smile wanting the ice to know it got it right. The ice laughed, though he couldn’t hear the sound of its voice still frozen below the surface. The ice looked away quickly and seemed to say something to someone next to him then looked right back though with his expression quieted to just a sparkling wonder. He reached his hand out as if to touch Yuri’s face and frowned when his hand couldn’t move past the surface. Yuri dropped his cheek to the ice to meet his cold hand. When he looked back up the beaming smile over the ice’s silent laugh had returned. The ice moved his mouth to try to say something to him, but Yuri shook his head telling him he couldn’t hear. The ice pouted again then pointed at him and nodded his head towards him and pointed to his mouth then cupped his hand around his ear. Did he want him to try speaking?

“Hi,” Yuri whispered in a timid voice.

The ice shook his head. He tried again louder, but the ice shook his head again. The ice thought for a moment then smiled and drew his finger across the ice as he pointed to himself. Yuri’s face screwed up with confusion, and the ice sighed and dropped his hand. The ice spoke over his shoulder again then stood up and looked down at him, though from Yuri’s view he was looking up. He had a lanky form like the boys a bit older than him had and those silver fingers reaching for him settled into hair draping around his shoulders and twisting down in a single braid. He had skates on his feet. What did the ice need with skates? He turned his toe out and pushed off the side of his blade and gestured for him to follow. He retreated from his view as Yuri struggled to his feet but then came back a moment later and waited for him to catch up. Yuri’s wobbly blades wouldn’t let him keep up with his graceful pushes across his side of the ice, but the ice kept returning to his side whenever he skated out of view.

“What are you looking at, Yuri?” Yuko skated next to him, studying the same ice he was.

“The ice boy.”

“Huh?”

“Right there.” He pointed at the ice, and the ice smiled back. “The boy.”

“The boy?” Yuko peered over him. “There’s a boy in the ice?”

Yuri looked over at her, his eyes shining with new understanding. Of course, it wasn’t the ice itself. It was a boy on the ice like him just on the other side of it. “Yes! The boy in the ice! Right there.”

“Ooohh. I see now.” Yuko nodded solemnly. “Well, I can’t see him that good. What does he look like?”

“Pretty. He’s got skin the color of snow, and his hair looks like a melting icicle. And blue eyes.”

“Blue eyes? Wow. Like a manga character?”

Yuri nodded and looked back, and the boy smiled brightly at him. “And red cheeks and just a bit on the end of his nose.”

Yuko nodded again. “Well, yeah. Living in the ice is cold. It would make his cheeks red. Does he always live there or does he go home?”

“I don’t know. I just met him.”

“Can you ask?”

“We can’t hear each other.”

“Oh, right. You can’t hear through the ice. What’s his name?”

“I don’t know. I can’t ask him, remember?”

“Oh, I mean, you didn’t give him a name?”

Yuri frowned. Give him a name. “No. He must have one already. I just don’t know it.”

“Oh, okay. Well, it’s nice to meet you, boy in the ice.” Yuko waved to the ice, but the boy didn’t wave back.

Yuri tried waving, and the boy waved back with a beaming smile. “Hmm… I think he can’t see you.”

“Oh, that’s too bad. Hey, Yuri, I’m sorry Nishigori was mean to you. I’m your friend though, right?”

“Yeah. You’re nice. I like you.”

Yuko smiled. “I like you too. You’re sweet.”

Yuri blushed and ducked his head. “Thanks.”

They skated around together, with Nishigori glaring at Yuri from the bench where Yuko’s mom had ordered him to sit, and Yuko on one side of Yuri and the boy in the ice on the other. The boy could do tricks that left Yuri mesmerized. Twirls sending his gleaming hair flying out around him. Skating backwards on one foot, ending only when his speed ran out and he had to push again to recover it. Even jumps that he set up carefully on an arc to stay within his view. Yuri tried to copy some of his skating and Yuko joined in, but they stumbled more often than they gained any new mastery. Every time Yuri fell, the boy would stop and wait as he struggled to his feet and encouraged him to get back up with his smile glimmering in the ice. Even though Yuri fell more than usual trying to keep up, his smile stayed fixed on his face until the boy in the ice skated over to the wall and hesitated before he waved and vanished.

“He’s gone.” Yuri whipped around looking for him and fell onto his butt. His tears welled up into fat pools below his eyes before they rolled down his cheeks burning away the ice for a moment before the ice reclaimed its territory with a vengeance. “He left.”

“Hey, it’s okay.” Yuko dropped down and wiped his face with her gloves. “Maybe he just had to go home. Maybe he can come back tomorrow.”

“Oh, yeah. Maybe.” He sniffed and tried to stop crying.

He skated around a bit more looking for the boy in the ice then gave up hoping Yuko was right and headed home. Taking off his shoes at the door, he came in to his favorite smell in the world. Katsudon. He bounded into the kitchen and hugged his mom’s legs covered with the rough apron. “Kaachan! Guess what happened!”

“What’s that, Yuri? Did you learn something new at skating?”

“Uh-uh. I saw a boy in the ice!”

“Oh yeah?” His mother’s voice hummed gently as she poured the egg into the sweet brown sauce smattered with peas and onions. “In the ice? You mean like he’s trapped under it?”

“Yeah! He skates on the other side of the ice. And he’s really pretty, and he smiles a lot, and he seems nice. I hope he’ll be back tomorrow.”

“Then I hope so too.” His mom leaned down to bop his nose gently. “Now, can you help me set the table?”

“Yeah!” Yuri twirled as he danced across the wooden kitchen floor to grab the chopsticks.

***

Yuri spent day after day on the rink looking for him, yet he saw nothing except for the deceptively blank face of the ice for months. Some days he got mad at it for not letting the boy come out to play, and some days he asked it nicely to bring him back, and some days he cried pathetically when all of the falls and the taunts and the empty ice added up, but Yuri learned his second thing about the ice: it was exactly as immovable as it looked. There was no pleading or cajoling with it. The ice just was, and he had no choice but to accept what it offered. He wondered if the gods could change its mind. He made many wishes for them to do so, but it seemed as though the gods held as much power over the ice as he did. He could only hope that the ice might change its mind.

He watched the ice as always as he teetered about on his blades in the mostly empty rink scanning the scrapes and scuffs for movement. Only Yuko and Nishigori were there today along with Yuko’s mom who was their coach but was currently watching from the office window as she attended to the business side of owning an ice rink while she let them skate after their lessons.

“Hey, Katsuki.” Nishigori’s voice crept up behind him, uncharacteristically subdued. He skated next to him quietly while Yuri switched between watching the ice and glancing at Nishigori trying to figure out what exactly he was doing there. Nishigori glanced over at Yuko who was watching them closely as she skated nearby then looked back at Yuri with his face twisted up into a half pout. “What are you looking for?”

Yuri startled at the gentleness in his voice and stumbled on the ice as his toe picks caught and halted his forward motion abruptly, pitching him forward into a certain nosedive. Nishigori’s hand shot out and caught his chest and set him back upright on his blades. Yuri stared over at him wide-eyed. Nishigori yanked his hand back to his side scowling but glanced at Yuko who smiled at him. He held back a tiny smile as he looked down at the ice.

“So, what are you looking for?”

Yuri was confused as to why he suddenly cared and was even more confused as to why he had stopped him from falling, but if Nishigori wanted to be friends instead of being mean all the time, then he wouldn’t mind that. “The- the boy in the ice.”

“Huh?”

“There’s a boy who skates on the other side of the ice. I saw him once, but I haven’t seen him again, and I really want to. He’s really pretty and nice, and he skates so pretty too.”

Nishigori sneered. “You think you really saw a boy skating in the ice?”

“Yeah, I did.”

“That’s so stupid!”

“It’s not! I really saw him!”

“Did anyone else see him?”

“Yuko was there! We skated with him!”

He turned to look at her. “Hey! Did you see a boy in the ice?”

Yuko looked at Yuri and winced. “No, not really.”

Nishigori started laughing. “You’re such a weirdo, fatso! You’re so stupid if you think that people can really skate on the other side of the ice!”

“But I did see him!”

His grating laugh picked up volume. “Fatso’s such a weirdo! Fatso! Weirdo! Fatso! Weirdo!”

“Shut up! I did see him! Stop laughing!” Hot tears clenched his throat and burned the cold from his eyes.

“Hey! I said don’t be mean!” Yuko shouted. “Okaasan!” Her voice bellowed all the way through the glass, and her mom stood up and headed for the stairs down to the rink.

“What? I can’t help it if the kid’s weird. It’s his own fault that no one likes him. He shouldn’t be so weird. Why do you want me to be nice to such a weirdo anyway?”

“Stop calling him that! You’re so mean, Nishigori!”

“Nishigori! Here! Now!” Yuko’s mom called out.

Nishigori glowered at him. “You’re always getting me in trouble, fatso, even when I try being nice to you.” Apparently deciding that since he was already in trouble he might as well go all out, he slammed his hip into Yuri as he left and knocked him onto the blank ice leaving his eyes to burn and his chest to ache.

***

After dinner that night after all the guests had left, Yuri and Mari were sent out to clean the onsen. Mari crouched low with a scrub brush in hand to scour the rocks along the edge while Yuri was instructed to gather the tubs and scrub them down. He twirled with his arms swinging out and pulling in tight along his path to gather them.

“Yuri! Knock that off.” Mari huffed the hair out of her face. “We’re supposed to be cleaning, not dancing.”

“I am cleaning.”

“No, you’re dawdling and daydreaming again. You haven’t touched a tub in five minutes.”

“But I am cleaning. See?” He picked up the tub nearest him and set it down in his slowly growing pile.

She sighed. “Just hurry up, would you? Whatever you don’t finish I have to do, and I have studying to do tonight and so do you.”

“I’m hurrying. I’m hurrying.” He scurried off to grab the tub someone carelessly left propped against the rocks only one gusty breeze away from being knocked into the water.

He’d spun for the first time that day in his class, and he’d loved it. He loved how the ice slipped easily under his skates freeing his body to move faster than it ever had, even if it was only for a tiny second, and he loved the dizziness in his head and in his belly that felt like getting off a carnival ride. He spun, rising up onto the ball of his foot, and took a new step only when his motion ran out trying to catch that same feeling on the grippy ground, but of course, it was nothing like ice and wouldn’t let him go fast enough. The soles of his bare feet burned as the gritty flooring tried to keep him in place.

“Come out and play again, ice boy!” Maybe asking the boy instead of the ice would help. Maybe it was the boy who didn’t want to play with him because he couldn’t keep up. “Please? I learned how to spin like you! I’ll be more fun to skate with if you come back! We can spin, spin, spin all over the ice and I’m faster now too so you won’t have to stop for me so much and I’ll watch you so I can learn to keep up with you so come play with me, ice boy! Come skate with me, please?!” He stopped spinning so he could put his hands to his mouth to funnel his voice up to the sky. “I’ll be a good student and work hard, and we’ll have lots of fun!”

“Yuri! Stop shouting and stop dawdling!”

His hands dropped from his mouth as he turned to snap at her. “I’m not dawdling! And I have to shout because I don’t know where he lives. Maybe I was just too quiet the first time, and that’s why he couldn’t hear me.” He put his hands back up and resumed his spinning as he called out again. “Ice boy! Please be my friend! I’ll be very nice to you!”

“He couldn’t hear you because you made him up. It’s all in your head.” Her brush tore across the rocks under her clipped tones. “Now stop being so weird and get back to work before the whole town learns just how weird you are!” She worked her brush worked harder creating a grating sound that scraped at his ears, the coarse bristles chanting, “weird,” in a relentless chorus.

He lowered his eyes to fix on her form precarious on the edge of the water and yelled a war cry as he lunged at her. Hard-bitten, tiny hands made contact, and her solid body gave way. She tumbled straight into the onsen. She shrieked as she plunged into the scalding water and his mom came racing out from the changing room still holding a stack of folded towels.

“What happened?! Mari!” She gasped and tossed the towels down and ran to pull Mari out of the water. Mari slopped onto the rocks steaming in the cool autumn night, trembling, and as pink as a steamed crab.  “How did you fall in?” His mom shook her head incredulously, and Yuri’s stomach started to ache.

“Yuri pushed me!” Mari shivered as she rolled onto her side and sat up glaring at him, water dripping from the hair plastered to her forehead.

“Yuri!” His mom paused in her removal of Mari’s wet clothes and gasped. “Is this true?”

Tears swelled in his eyes that he cast on the ground. “Yes, Okaasan. I’m sorry!” He looked back up at them, and his tears fell down his cheeks. “I’m so sorry! I- I didn’t mean to!”

“How could you hurt your sister like that? And you dirtied the water. What will the customers think of me when I tell them my child dirtied the water, so it’s not open for their use tomorrow? I thought you had a bond with us. I guess I was wrong.” Her mouth fell, and the outer corners of her eyes squeezed tighter as if her heart were breaking as she turned away from him to attend to Mari.

“You’re not wrong! I do have a bond with you! I’m so sorry!” Yuri bowed as low as he could go, his back as straight as he could get it.

“If that’s true, then why would you do such a bad thing to us?” She didn’t look at him as she spoke, instead focusing on the towel she had picked up to dry Mari’s hair. “Leave us. You can’t be with us if you want to act like we mean nothing to you. You’ve hurt me and brought me shame. I’m disappointed in you.”

Sobbing, he ran into his room and closed the door, his tears stopping and starting over the endless time he waited listening for his mom to come back to give him another chance.

“Please, Okaasama, please keep being my mom.” His words squeaked through the tightness in his throat. He drew his knees up to his chest and hugged them tight while he practiced his apology. “I’m so sorry. I won’t ever do it again. I promise I am- can be a good son who brings you pride. I won’t ever disappoint you again. Please, Kaachan, don’t give up on me.” He pressed his eyes into his knees as the tightness from his tears blocked off his words. As soon as it eased he tried again, trying to get the words just right.

His family’s soft footsteps pattered down the hallway. He lifted his head and tried to quiet the tears so he could hear his mom’s approach to his room and be ready to greet her with the apology he hoped would be good enough to convince her to change her mind. One door shut followed by another a few minutes later. With his knees pressed back tight against his closed eyes, he sucked in breath after breath with no air managing to make its way in with every single crack sealed shut. His lungs snapped and popped like the logs his grandpa had set in the bonfire this summer. Tears kept coming harder making the fire in his chest burn hotter until he remembered that the ice always took away the burn of his tears and settled deep into his lungs. The ice could fix this. He just had to make it there.

Sneaking silently from his bed, he tiptoed down the hall and tried to keep his sobs contained as he made his way past his parents’ room. He put his shoes on then slipped out the door, wincing as it made a soft thud behind him. He didn’t know how long he had before he was burned alive so he decided it would be best to run. Strangely enough, the running didn’t make the burn in his chest any worse. If anything, it helped ease the suffocation as his lungs summoned all their strength to pull the air in. He made it to the rink and snuck around back to the garage door for the Zamboni that was always left open. Yuko had shown it to him when they snuck back there to sit on it and pretend to drive it. He pulled the clattering metal up just enough to roll his body under then pulled it back down behind him. He stood up and paused there breathing in the grease and diesel trying to quiet his breath before opening the side door. Peeking around the dark hallways, he snuck carefully down to the locker room and put on his skates. It took a few tries with his shaking hands making the difficult task even more challenging. Skates finally secured to his feet, he went out to the rink and stepped onto the dark, clear ice.

A small light came from the office window above the rink gave him just enough light to see. As he passed under it, he turned backwards and his fresh marks in the ice lit up, little glowing arrows leading straight to the culprit. When Yuko’s mom came in the morning, she’d see the marks, and she’d know he’d been here. He sank on his hands and knees onto the betraying ice as the cold that had first soothed his burning lungs now crushed them like he was trapped on the wrong side of the ice. Maybe he was on the wrong side of the ice. Maybe he didn’t belong on this side, and that’s why no one wanted him here. Maybe he belonged on the other side with the boy, and that was why he was the only one who could see him. He buried his face into his clenched fists that rested bare on the ice as his tears poured over them. His stomach burned with acid and each passing moment left him even more desperate for air as he sucked in quick, useless breaths. He was certain he was going to die.

He swiped his face across his frozen hands, and a wild motion below him caught his attention. Wiping his face again, he spotted the boy pounding the ice with his fists. The boy’s hands stilled, but his face crumpled in pain. Yuri tried to smile but his chest hurt too much, and it quickly fell back into his sobs. The boy pressed the palm of his hand against the ice as he’d done when he tried to reach him before, and Yuri pressed his cheek to the ice for a moment. Even though his touch was cold, it eased a bit of the pain and started to quiet his lungs.

Yuri sat back up, and the boy’s hand fell back as his lips eased into a small smile. The boy brushed at his own cheeks and nodded to Yuri which he took as meaning he was supposed to do the same. Yuri quickly obeyed and wiped away his tears, not wanting to disappoint him too. The boy’s smile stretched a bit more, and Yuri found his own returning as he sniffed to stop up his tears. The boy nodded and brushed his cheeks again prompting him to do the same. The boy reached his fist toward the ice and Yuri copied him, pressing his knuckles to the ice just as the boy did. Smiling, the boy dropped his face to where their hands met and kissed the ice below his knuckles. Below cheeks that somehow managed to heat up even through the cold, a smile slipped onto Yuri’s face. The boy smiled wide, and Yuri laughed because his smile looked exactly like a heart. Warm creases formed around the boy’s eyes and he pressed his lips to Yuri’s knuckles again. Rising to his feet, the boy gestured for him to follow. Yuri got up but then hesitated because skating would leave more marks. He wondered if that would make it worse or not, but as the boy skated out of view, he chased after him not caring what it would cost him in the morning.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The gorgeous art above was created by Clarinda0110. Please, if you have a [Tumblr](http://clarinda0110.tumblr.com/post/174822355161/the-boy-in-the-ice-by-clarinda-created-alongside), take a moment to share your appreciation of it with her or mention it in the comments here and I'll be sure to pass on your love.


	2. Chapter 2

In a bar in Saint Petersburg past a row of stools that had been scrubbed of their varnish by the coarse overalls of the workers who came in to claim their favorite ones every night, we sat tucked into a peeling, red booth in a dim corner. The beer had finally reached a sufficient concentration in our bodies to numb the noise that bustled around us. It was the last place to look for Viktor Nikiforov in Russia, and so this was where I was, hiding out with yet another World’s hanging in the distance. It was also the last place I’d ever expected to share this particular story, though I’d never really expected to share it with anyone at all, to be honest, but this moment begged for the story which if not told now, would be handed the remaining power it needed to complete its mission of the total erosion of the base my life sat on.

It was a story of a cruel dream that I’d buried in the edges of my mind through denials of its truth every time its fleeting touches flared out in silent moments and glaring coincidences. If it were to be believed, its refusal to allow me peace and satisfaction with my life was more than deserved. Every time the story replayed, it distorted further from the realm of the believable, but maybe what’s most real is that which demands existence. And here it was demanding existence yet again through a final ultimatum.

“Viktor? Are you gonna answer?”

“You want a story, huh? About the most unbelievable thing I’ve ever believed?”

“Yeah, the absolute craziest one you have. Don’t hold back.”

I took another sip of beer to buy myself just another moment to decide. Whether the story itself was true or not, the truth of the power it had over me was utterly undeniable. “I’m not sure if this counts because I don’t know if I believe it, but I think it’s close enough to what you’re asking.”

***

Viktor planned a double toe loop next, easy enough, and turned onto his back outside edge. His coach had been pestering him on his technique all morning more than taking advantage of the extra practice time the day off of school had given them to drill him to exhaustion. But now that he had some time to practice on his own, he didn’t want to worry about edges and cleaner turns. He just wanted to skate and have fun because his body loved skating at least as much as he did. He was a natural on the ice, or so they said. He didn’t really care much about that. He only cared that the ice always wanted to hear his stories. He could tell it anything, and the ice would listen patiently, never in a rush to go anywhere, never finding his stories too crazy or too boring. It always waited through all of the misses and stumbles for him to find the right words to tell it. The falls hurt of course, but there was something reassuring about the way he could be absolutely certain that the ice would be right there after yet another mess up. Carelessness was his downfall this time. He felt the certain crash as soon as he planted his toe pick, or failed to plant it completely rather, and his body tilted too far in the air to have any hope of catching that back edge again. His skate slipped out from under him, and he landed flat on his back, knocking the wind out of him. Coughing the air back in, he waited on the ice for a moment to reorient himself before he flipped onto his hands and knees to get back up.

A glance down below him knocked the wind out of him again. He wasn’t sure if he was hallucinating, but this seemed almost too strange for his mind to imagine even in the wildest of dreams. The shocked face of a little boy stared at him from the other side of the ice, tears streaking his squishy cheeks below the sweetest brown eyes. If he were to dream about seeing someone in the ice, it would be someone mysterious, maybe someone offering him super powers if he’d leave his life behind and join him on a quest to save the world. He would gladly. He certainly wouldn’t think to dream of an adorable little boy looking just as confused as to what was happening as he was. He didn’t like how upset the boy looked too. That’s also something he certainly wouldn’t dream. He hated when people were upset. This boy had clearly been crying until the ice suddenly tossed him into Viktor’s world.

He tried out a smile to cheer him up and laughed when the boy returned it, nodding his head as if to praise him for a good effort. What a little sweetie trying to encourage him when Viktor was the one who was wanting to clear his tears. 

“Hey, Vitya! How hard did you hit your head on that fall?” His coach bellowed from the other side of the rink with his next student giving him pleading looks to end his torment of drills already.

“I’m fine, Coach Zakhar!”

“Then quit laughing at the ice like a crazy person before I kick you off!” His scolding was tempered by the warm laugh he always followed up his words with that made his intense training bearable. He turned his attention back to his current student, leaving Viktor free to either follow his command or not.

Viktor looked back at the ice expecting the boy to have vanished with his daydream broken, but he was still right there, looking like he was waiting for Viktor to do something. He looked so close and so real, he wondered if he could touch him. He reached his hand out towards his face, but just touched the cold of ice. Of course, he wouldn’t be able to touch him. _You can’t touch a dream, idiot._ He frowned at his stupidity and the little boy pouted then dropped his face to the ice to try to press against the palm of his hand, determined to reach him anyway. He giggled as his heart melted at the adorable ridiculousness of it all. He certainly wouldn’t think of this to dream of, but what a sweet dream it was.

He might as well introduce himself. “Hi, I’m Viktor. What’s your name?”

The boy shook his head. He couldn’t hear him. He also couldn’t hear the boy, and the boy was too little to read when he tried to write his name across the ice. He didn’t look Russian at all though, so maybe that was a lost cause even if he was old enough to read. He sighed, trying to figure out what the point of this dream was if they couldn’t interact in any way.

“Hey, Vitya!” His coach’s bellowing took on a concerned tone. “You okay? Did you actually injure yourself?”

“I’m fine, coach. I’m just resting.” He got to his feet to end his coach’s concerns.

Maybe they could skate together. That might be fun. The boy might like his stories as much as the ice did if he was trapped in it. The boy struggled to his feet to join him as he skated off and tried his best to keep up. With his eager eyes, he looked just like a little brown puppy chasing his heels. What kind of story did the boy want to hear? He decided on one about two boys who were friends who traveled the world slaying dragons, sleeping out in a tent, and laughing together over campfires in between missions. He wished he could play music and wear a costume to help him tell the story, but the boy seemed to like it enough with just his skating. He looked much happier at least as he kept excitedly turning to talk to someone next to him while pointing at him and shakily replaying some of the easier moves he did. He fell a lot as he pushed his skills beyond his limits, but he really had to admire the boy who had a lot of strength already in such a soft little body as he kept getting up and trying again.

“Time’s up, Vitya. Clear the ice!”

The Zamboni was already growling at the doors waiting for Viktor to follow his coach’s orders. He really didn’t want to leave so soon, but he didn’t have a choice. He paused at the door and glanced to make sure no one was watching him before he waved to the boy and left the ice.

***

It was a few months before he saw the boy again. He had scared him half to death with how badly he was freaking out the next time he saw him, but luckily his pathetic attempts to cheer him up had seemed to work. After that, the boy began to appear more regularly until suddenly he was there nearly every day. Even though he always showed up during the time his coach had given him to skate alone in peace after his training, he never minded the boy’s presence. They couldn’t talk, but that never mattered much after they’d given up the idea of trying to communicate normally. The boy was still too much of a beginner to have any real words for the ice yet, but he tried and seemed to understand what Viktor tried to tell him through his dances on the ice, and his sparkling, unguarded expressions always told Viktor everything he couldn’t say through the ice yet. He always tried to guard them, doing his absolute best to hold back his emotions, but whatever he was feeling always proved to be bigger than his control, and it would burst across his face, a flash fire that seemed to surprise himself as much as it surprised Viktor. Viktor watched those moments of trembling quiet in the boy as intently as he watched shiny packages in his hands on New Year’s promising endless surprises.

They skated together for over a year with their silent language forming their bond faster by the day. The few days they missed skating together always seemed empty, and each missed one was emptier than the last. Viktor would think of new stories to tell the boy, and as soon as the boy had words for skating, he began to come up with his own stories to tell Viktor. They would take turns copying each other’s stories to see how they felt in their own bodies to understand them completely. The boy slipped easily into Viktor’s life and he didn’t realize how much he relied on his presence and their conversations understood only by each other until one missed day slipped into another and another and an entire missed week struck upon the next which dragged on without any intention of ending.  

Viktor scanned the quiet ice after another training session hoping to find the boy, but he was beginning to lose hope. What happened to him? It seemed as though they figured out the right schedule to skate together and the boy seemed to understand that as he was always there at the same time. Something must have stopped him from coming or maybe… maybe he chose not to be there. Maybe his stories weren’t as entertaining for the boy as he thought they were. Maybe what he had to say was just too boring and filled with too many mistakes to hold the boy’s interest for long. Maybe a year with him was more than enough.

He’d seen it so many times before. People seemed to be drawn to him at first and clung to his every word, rapt attention sparkling in their eyes, but inevitably he would slip. Repeat a story twice to the same audience, tell a joke wrong and watch it fall onto silence, share a thought that wasn’t nearly as interesting to them as it was to him and their eyes would flick down, first in confusion and then disappointment. He’d somehow fail them beyond this small mistake, but he was never quite sure what he did wrong. It was like they expected something from him that they didn’t expect from anyone else, and when he didn’t deliver on this unspoken promise, they resented him. They would still talk to him and fight each other to claim him as ‘their best friend,’ but there was something missing in every conversation that followed. He could never tell if he was the only one who noticed how they made excuses to leave as soon as they were out of view of anyone else or if they were feeling the weight of his failure too and were just trying to shed themselves of it.

Of course, the boy would just leave him. No one else could see him with him so he couldn’t use him to show off to the girls who called him, “The prettiest boy in the school” and use him to start conversations with them, and he was probably too young to care about that anyway. He couldn’t use him to copy homework from or get him to smile sweetly at the teachers and convince them to give them a break on homework for the weekend since he had so much skating to work on to be good enough to bring pride to their city and the school. He had no use to the boy other than to entertain him and tell him to wipe his face when he cried, and he was obviously bad at both of those. Why should he stick around when Viktor had broken that unspoken promise to be perfect yet again and he served no other use to him? He had thought that the boy looked at him the same as always no matter how many times he messed up, but he must have been wrong.

He replayed their last skates together to see where he went wrong, but he couldn’t find it. He had cheered silently with the boy as he did his first waltz jump after watching Viktor break it down as slowly as he could without falling over and before that Viktor had come up with a brand-new story that the boy had seemed to love as he copied it with a huge smile on his face the entire time. He went over their last days again, looking even closer to see if he could spot anything off and was lost in the replay when he finally spotted motion below him in the ice.

His heart clenched in relief as he dropped to his hands and knees to greet the boy with a bare hand pressed to the cold ice. The boy hesitated just a moment before he smiled softly and pressed his cheek down to reach him then offered his hand for Viktor to do the same. Viktor came back up from the ice beaming, but his smile fell when he saw the boy looking away from him and only casting occasional glances his way. Something really was wrong after all. He glanced up to make sure his coach was still eating his reheated dinner in the office before he motioned for the boy to give him his hand and he pressed his lips to the ice below his knuckles.

He sat back up and for the first time since they met, he tried talking again, willing the sound to reach him with all his might. “Please don’t leave me. I’ll think of better stories, and I’ll try to make fewer mistakes. I promise I can be better. Please stay with me.”

The boy just tilted his head, confused. The boy was going to leave him, and he had a small chance to convince him to stay, but he couldn’t think of what else to do since he couldn’t hear him and his stories weren’t enough. He knelt helplessly, his hand still pressed bare to the ice below him trying to just hold onto the boy as he begged his brain to come up with something. He saw the boy’s shocked expression before he felt the tears roll down his cheeks.

“Please stay with me.” His voice broke as his tears fell harder.

The boy patted the ice with his hand, and Viktor dropped his cheek to it. The boy put his face to the ice, and when Viktor pulled back, he could see his kiss still pressed to the ice where his cheek had been. The boy sat up and smiled then wiped his blushing cheeks as Viktor always did when he cried. He smiled and wiped his face, and the boy gave him the biggest, warmest smile he had then got up and gestured for him to follow as he started another story.


	3. Chapter 3

It was Yuri’s favorite time of year. Plum blossoms peeked out from sparkling coats of dripping snow, and the bite of winter was just beginning to loosen its jaws. His dad always told him that while the cherry blossom should be admired for its gentle beauty, the plum blossom was to be respected for its strength for blooming in the winter took courage. He said that he always believed that it was the opening of the plum blossoms that shook winter from the land as they unfurled to shed the snow from their backs and without their strength they just might be cursed to live under the clouds of an eternal winter.

The blossoms carried a sweet fragrance with a heft the cherry blossoms lacked having deemed a sterile beauty to be more than enough for them. Maybe they were right as the sakura was the one everyone waited all year for barely giving the plum blossoms a glance as they passed, but Yuri thought that nothing could compare to the way the plum blossom's lush floral scent laced with the crackling snow. His mom was preparing for the first picnic of the year to be had under the plum trees, and Yuri could already taste the flowering richness of the plum blossom truffles clinging to his tongue as he wound the wheel of the camera tight to take another photo.

He wanted to show the boy in the ice the plum blossoms, how they held up towering piles of snow on their delicate, pink petals. They reminded him of the boy with his cheeks, pink, framed with pale ice, and how he was so strong despite his fragile appearance. There was a park in between his school and the rink that had a small cluster of plum trees and with the sun lighting up the snow, today was the perfect day to capture their beauty to show the boy. That was if he could manage to take clear shots instead of the fuzzy ones he always seemed to take. He wound the wheel again, rapid clicks wrapping tight, then stood up on his toes and brought the lens of the disposable camera close to the prettiest blossom and held his breath as he pressed the button.

“Hey, fatso. Whatchya doing?”

Yuri cringed, but wound the wheel again, keeping his back turned. “Leave me alone, Nishigori.”

“I just asked you a question, fatso. Why do you gotta be so weird all the time?”

Tears started burning in his eyes, and he did his best to hold them back as he turned to yell over his shoulder. “Go away!” He gasped when he caught sight of the other boys with him and jerked back to look at the tree, his hand tightening around the camera. Nishigori was bad enough, but the boys with him were worse. “Please just leave me alone.”

“We told you there’d be consequences if you didn’t listen, fatso.” It was one of the other boys talking now. Yuri couldn’t tell which one and it really didn’t matter. He wanted to run away, but they had the exit blocked, and he doubted his stubby legs could make it past them.

“Listen to what?” Nishigori asked.

“You said you didn’t want the weirdo hanging around the rink and contaminating Yuko with his loser germs, so we told him to stay away from them, but the idiot didn’t listen. But don’t worry. We’ll teach him a lesson, so even he won’t be stupid enough to make that mistake again.”

A hand whacked against the back of Yuri’s head sending a cluster of stars spinning after the blow, and before he could run or fight back, a foot slammed into his back and knocked him to the ground. The camera skittered away as blood from a bitten lip filled his mouth and dripped into hot pools in the snow. He twisted back and pushed up onto his hands to get back on his feet just as another foot bashed against his ribs and knocked him coughing back onto the ground. Curling up into a ball as tight as he could, he tucked his head under his hands and hoped they’d be done soon. His eyes squeezed shut as the foot kicked again harder each time against his side.

“Hey, guys, it doesn’t really matter.” Nishigori’s voice had a slight tremor of fear. “Let’s just leave before we get into trouble.”

“Nah, no one’s around to see, and he’s not going to tell anyone, right, fatso?”

A hand gripped Yuri’s hair and yanked his head up, ripping it out by the roots. He cried out with the pain but glared at Ine’s crooked eye that never looked where it was supposed to until his grip twisted tighter, and Yuri nodded, whimpering as more hair was ripped out.

“Good. See? He’s teachable. We just have to make the lesson good enough.” Ine bashed his head back on the ground then dragged him up again and handed him off to one of his buddies to hold up as he worked his fists hard into his stomach.

Yuri sobbed as the pain churned in his stomach and his panic cut off the air to his lungs. “Sto- please. Please stop.” Blood and tears dripped down his chin.

“Shut up. You have such a fat stomach you probably can’t even feel it.” He strengthened his blows even more. 

Yuri felt like he was going to be sick as his fist felt like it was punching all the way through him. He tried to blink away the blurring tears and locked eyes with Nishigori who stood back from the rest staring dumbstruck. “Plea-se stop.”

“I said shut up!” Ine’s fist burst against his eye, and a swirling weakness overtook him as his whole body trembled with shock. Ine dropped his hands and stood in front of him panting then spotted his camera on the ground and smashed it under his heel, stomping until the plastic cracked under his force.

“Hey, Ine! I think someone’s coming!”

They dropped him on the ground, and he curled right back into his ball, jerking when his camera bounced off of his face.

Ine leaned down to sneer. “Don’t tell anyone, or it’ll be much worse the next time.”

They all bolted off except for Nishigori who hesitated, his face still frozen in shock.

“Takeshi! Let’s get out of here!”

“Ye-yeah.” He bolted after the others, casting one last glance at Yuri before he left.

His mouth filled with iron-tinged blood and his body stunned with pulsing pain, Yuri heard distant voices approaching as he watched the plum blossoms tremble and the world blacked out into his burning panic.

***

Holding his breath, he slid the metal door up, rolled underneath it wincing, and pulled it shut again behind him. The soft scrape of his skates on the ice in the dark, empty rink sounded wrong _._ Unsteady. His body hadn’t stopped shaking since the fight this afternoon, and every part of him felt weak and ached more with every passing minute. He skated over to the wall and sank down onto the ice and hoped the boy would come looking for him all the way out at the rough edges of the ice.

He almost didn’t come. The threat of the boys and the pain and lingering fear and his desire not to let the boy see him weak like that all told him to stay home, but his parents’ doting concern and his sister’s protective anger only made him feel weaker, and only the ice and the boy in it ever made him feel strong. The boy never lingered over his tears instead telling him to wipe them away and get up to try again, and that was what he needed now. He waited with beads of tears grabbing his lashes through every blink for the boy to show.

The boy’s bright smile appeared first followed by his confusion as he sat down on the ice next to him and then his horror as Yuri looked over at him through the one eye that wasn’t swollen shut. One hand flew to the boy’s mouth, and the other made a fist against the ice that relaxed into his welcoming open palm. He winced but dropped down anyway to meet him, and when he looked back up, the boy had tears on his cheeks for the second time. It wasn’t supposed to go that way. He was supposed to tell him to get up, not sit there with him making his tears break free.

The boy’s mouth started to move and his fists pressed into the ice in rhythm with his words. Yuri shook his head, and the boy grew more desperate, his fists pounding harder and his face reddening as he shouted at the ice. A faint voice caught Yuri’s attention, and he stiffened, holding his breath in hopes that whoever was there wouldn’t notice him. He sank down lower as the voice grew louder, and he recognized it as a boy’s voice, praying that the boys from earlier hadn’t followed him in. The voice got louder as though it were right next to him. He couldn’t understand any of the words, but as he looked back at the boy still shouting at the ice, they seemed to match the movements of his mouth.

Yuri gasped, and his eyes widened. The boy stilled then put a questioning hand to his ear. Yuri nodded and a smile broke through the boy’s desperation. He spoke again, and he heard him clearly though he couldn’t understand any of his words still. Yuri nodded again but then shook his head, and the boy stopped to think.

“English?” The boy’s face took on a fragile hope.

He smiled and nodded. “A little.”

The boy’s tears squeezed through his smile and his eyes closed with relief. He signaled for Yuri to put his fingers on the ice for him to kiss. He came back up but left his hand against the ice below his. “Hi. I’m Viktor. What’s your name?”

“Yuri.”

Viktor’s smile melted across his face. “Hi, Yuri. It’s so good to hear your voice. I like your name. It’s pretty like you.”

He pouted. “I’m not pretty. You are.”

Viktor laughed. “Thank you, but I think you’re pretty too.” His smile dropped away. “What happened, Yuri?”

He stared at him with his mouth hardened.

Viktor shook his head. “No. Tell me. I didn’t scream at the ice until it let you talk to me for you not to answer me.”

He searched his brain for the clunky words he needed to answer him. “Some boys… they hit me.”

Viktor gasped. “Why? How could they hit someone so adorable and sweet?”

“They don’t like me.”

“That’s impossible.” He shook his head then peered back over at him. “Why?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. They say I’m fat and weird, but I don’t know why I’m weird.”

“That’s because you’re not. You’re sweet and the cutest little boy I’ve ever seen, and you’re my most favorite person in the whole world even if I’m not really sure that you’re real.”

“I’m real. People say you not real, but I… know you are.”

His eyebrows lifted in surprise. “You’ve told people about me?”

He nodded. “A few but they don’t… think you’re… real. They think I… made you up.”

“It is hard to believe if you don’t see it. I see it, and sometimes I still think I’m just making you up to have a friend.”

Yuri smiled. “Why would you make up me? I’m not… special. I’m not like you.”

His face twisted into an angry pout. “You’re very special. I told you- you're my favorite person in the world.”

“Me? Really?”

“Yes, really.”

“Why? What about your parents or… brother or sister?”

He shook his head. “You. You always listen and… under-understand and you’re fun, and I’m always happiest to see you and saddest when you’re gone.”

“Oh. You my favorite too, Viktor.”

He smiled, his hand clutching at the ice. “You say my name so cute. Say it again.”

He blushed and ducked his head, turning away the injured side then glanced back over at him. “You my favorite, Viktor.”

Viktor beamed and kissed his hand again then sat back against his wall and hugged his knees with his free arm as Yuri was doing. “Tell me everything. How can I stop you from getting hurt again?”

He shook his head. “They don’t want me to skate.” He looked back at Viktor and set his jaw. “But I’m going to. I want to skate with you.”

He winced but then nodded firmly. “Good. I want to skate with you too.” He studied him with hurt in his eyes. “I wish I could fight them with you. I would you know. I’d go with you everywhere, and if they tried to hurt you again, we’d fight them together.”

He smiled. He liked the way he said it. Mari had yelled at him to tell her which boys did it so she could beat them up for him, but he liked that Viktor thought he could fight too.

“Can you fight them off by yourself if they try again?”

His chin wrinkled as he shook his head with an aching throat. “No. They bigger and more of them and I’m… I’m weak.”

“No, you’re not. You’re adorable, but you’re not weak. Don’t let anyone say you are.” His blue eyes steeled. “Fight them for me. If they try again, fight as hard as you can.”

“They’ll hurt me.”

“They’ll hurt you anyway. Fight like you do on the ice, and I think you’ll win.”

Yuri smiled and nodded once then crumpled again. “They broke my… my camera. I wanted to show you the ume… the ume… um… plum blossoms, but they broke it.”

“The film might still be good. You can try to see if the pictures will come out.”

He nodded. “Yeah. I’ll try.” He smiled timidly. “They-… They’re like you. Pretty and strong. Pink flowers bloom… blooming in snow.”

Viktor’s cheeks scrunched below his eyes. “I can’t wait to see. They sound beautiful. How old are you?”

“Seven. How old are you?”

“Eleven. You’re older than I thought you were. You look younger. What country are you from?”

“Country?”

“Yeah, like where you live. I live in Russia.”

“Ah okay. I’ve met some people from Russia before. I live in Japan.”

“Really? How did you meet them?”

“They came to visit. My parents have an onsen. People come from all over the world to stay with us and take bath in the water.”

“They stay with you to take a bath? We have baths here you know.”

Yuri laughed. “Yes, but this is special. It not just a bath. The water is special. It helps heal you.”

“Ah, I get it. Like banya. Did you take a bath in the water after you got hurt?”

Yuri nodded.

“Good. Take lots.”

“Oh!” He jumped up and leaned over Viktor’s surprised face. “You could come visit, and we could skate together on the same side of the ice!”

“I would love to, but I don’t think my parents will let me. They’re always busy working, and when they do have time off we just go to the dacha with my grandparents.”

“Oh.” He sank back against the wall and tucked his knees back to his chin.

“If I could go by myself, I would. When I’m older, I’ll come. I promise.”

Yuri nodded. “I’m scared, Viktor. I don’t know why they don’t want me to skate, but they’re strong, and it’s only me. What if they don’t stop?”

“You’re strong, Yuri. I know you are. Just don’t let them win.” His blue eyes fell into pleading. “Fight to stay with me, Yuri. Please? Promise me you won’t let anything keep us apart. I want you to keep skating with me. I like skating the most when you’re by my side.”

“I promise I’ll stay… close to you. Forever.”

“Yeah.” Viktor nodded and scooched closer until their reflections were side by side without a space between them. “Forever.”

***

The soft little jingle of bells announced his arrival into the printer’s shop, and the man at the counter waved with a smile as he reached for something under the counter.

“Hello, Yuri! How are you?”

“I’m good, thank you, Mr. Tanaka.” He reached the glass case at the front and grabbed the edge to lift himself higher to see over it. “Did they work?”

He nodded. “Like a charm. You took some beautiful photos.” He handed the envelope over. “I especially like the plum blossoms. You captured them just right.”

Yuri beamed. “Really?”

“You did, and I should know because they’re my favorite.”

“They’re mine too.”

“I can tell.” His face crinkled all over with his smile. “Here. Have a treat.” He handed a bucket of sweets over for him to choose from.

He pulled out a melon flavored one and gave him his best smile. “Thank you very much, Mr. Tanaka.”

He pressed another one into his hand. “Take two.”

“Thank you!” He tucked the candies into his pocket then gave a little bow and left the shop, the yellow and white envelope crinkling in his hand down the street. The plum blossoms had done their job. The last remaining petals now lay strewn over the ground, and the warmth of spring was well under way. His bruises had faded to yellow, and the anxiety that had followed him around had started to subside. He pulled the photos out of the envelope to look through them, and while a good chunk were blurry as he expected, a few came out decently. The second to last photo came out the blurriest except for the cluster he had selected as the prettiest which was crystal clear. He frowned at first with how blurry most of it was but then decided that if the one he wanted to show Viktor was clear, it didn’t mater what the rest looked like. Once he decided that, he rather liked the picture and a proud smile slipped onto his face. He flipped to the last photo, and the smile dropped. It was blurrier than the rest, but it was easy to see his face shoved into the red-stained snow. He found the nearest trashcan and tossed it away then went back to the one he would bring Viktor.

He rounded the corner past the park and the sound of feet scuffling behind him crept closer.

“Hey, fatso. Whatchya got there?”

He shoved the photos back in the envelope and tucked it back in his waistband as he turned around.

Ine and his three buddies sneered as Ine reached for the envelope. Nishigori wasn’t with them this time. 

Yuri twisted as he stepped back successfully keeping the envelope from his hands. “Stay away from me!”

Ine growled as he lunged for him and snatched the envelope away. He held his prize up in his fist as he glowered at him. “Why? Not like you know how to stay away. We see you at the rink still.”

“Give it back!” He lunged and jumped for the envelope, but Ine lifted it higher. “That’s mine!”

“Let’s see what we have here.” He flared the photos out from the envelope and thumbed through them. “Oh look. So pretty. You’re just like a girl, fatso. So soft and fragile.”

“I am not! Give that back now or… or-” His voice shook with his fear cutting off his threat that he couldn’t even form.

“Or what? What are you going to do to us? You already showed us how weak you are. You didn’t even put up a fight. You’re just a little coward.” 

Yuri snarled and lunged for the envelope again, and Ine’s fist tightened around it, crinkling the photos in his hand as he shoved him back. Rage snapped through Yuri’s limbs, and before he knew what he was doing, the flesh of Ine’s arm was clamped solidly between his teeth. Ine screamed with the surprise of pain and Yuri took advantage of his distraction to pry the photos from his weakened grip. The other boys formed a hesitant circle around him, testing with careful lunges as Ine beat his fist over his head trying to break his hold. Yuri bit harder as he started kicking Ine in the shin with all of his strength as he used his free hand to flail wildly at the boys trying to encroach.

“Get him off me!”

“We’re trying! He’s crazy!”

“Hit him!” Ine’s blows against his head weakened to abrupted shoves that he halted each time Yuri felt his flesh tugging in his teeth.

One of the other boys landed a fist on the eye still coated in yellow, and Yuri stumbled back, finally releasing Ine’s arm. Before they could attack again, he lunged snarling and flailing his arms with Ine’s blood smeared across his chin sending them reeling backwards.

“Let’s just get out of here! He’s crazy!” Ine’s crooked eye seemed to cry harder than the other as he pressed his hand over his wound.

Yuri’s whole body quivered with adrenaline as he watched them run down the street.

***

He spotted Viktor in the ice late that night and beamed through the new bruises on his face as he held up the creased photo.

“Viktor! I did it!”

Viktor gasped then looked around him and started whispering. “Can you still hear me?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. My coach hasn’t left yet. I have to keep skating. Are you okay?”

Yuri nodded with his smile cracking against the aching bruises as he followed him. “Yeah. I won! They tried to take my… my pictures, but I bit him!”

A loud, surprised laugh escaped, and he cringed as he slapped his hand over his mouth and dropped back to a whisper. “You bit him?”

“Yeah. I didn’t mean to, but I bit him and then yelled and ran at them and they think I was… crazy and ran away.”

He pressed his hand tighter to hold back his increasing laughter. “I bet they did. I’m so proud of you, Yuri. I knew you could do it.”

His chest nearly broke with the weight of that simple praise. Viktor believed he could fight off a group of bullies all on his own just as he believed he could get up after every fall. The kind of help Viktor gave was all he ever wanted. He didn’t want people to think he needed help. He wanted them to believe in him as Viktor did. His chest filled tighter as Viktor’s sweet smile kept flashing his way whenever his coach wasn’t looking.

A single thought popped his inflated pride and dragged fear back into its place. “What if they get madder that I hurt him?”

“Bite them harder.” Viktor’s smile refilled every corner of his chest as they skated around together quietly. “Okay, my coach left. Show me the picture!” Yuri held the photo up, but Viktor frowned. “I can’t see it.”

“It’s here.” He pointed at the pink blossoms.

“I mean I can’t see it through the ice. I see you holding something, but I can’t see the picture.”

“Oh.”

“Oh! Just tell me what it looks like!”

His face scrunched up as he looked for words to do the blossoms justice. “They’re pink, and the snow is… shiny…” He shook his head in frustration.

“Show me on the ice.” He smiled. “Skate the plum blossoms in snow for me.”

His smile came back as he nodded. “Okay.”

Viktor followed his motions on the ice in silence just as they always did, occasionally filling in gaps when Yuri couldn’t think of what to do next, and together they carved the plum blossoms into the ice. Yuri had practiced skills and linked one to the other crafting stuttering stories for Viktor, but he had never felt what skating, truly skating, felt like until that moment. His blades flowed from one motion to the next perfectly in sync with Viktor, and his body draped over the ice as though he had melted and become a part of it. He had thought he was supposed to make the ice surrender to his skill, but it was him that had to surrender to what the ice would allow. He looked over to Viktor and realized that what it would allow was more than he ever hoped for.

“Wow, Yuri.” Viktor panted quietly next to him as Yuri held his closing pose. “That was so beautiful. I think you’re the plum blossom. Not me. You looked so different just now. Soft, strong, and full of courage.”

Yuri blushed. “Was I too soft?”

He shook his head. “Not at all. Just beautiful. Skate just like that, and you’ll make everyone stop to watch you.”

“Will you watch me?”

“Yeah. Forever.”

“Viktor?”

He smiled. “Still so cute. Yes, Yuri?”

“I…” He tugged at the hem of his shirt. “I want to ask you… will you be my coach, Viktor?”

“Your coach? I’ve never been a coach before.”

He nodded. “I want to skate just like you and then when we older we can skate together on the same ice, and you won’t have to wait for me.” He dropped to his knees and pounced onto his reflection, giddy with hope. “Please be my coach, Viktor.”

He gasped then his heart-smile crinkled into his eyes. “How could I refuse such a cute ask? Okay, Yuri. I’ll be your coach.”


	4. Chapter 4

“Hey, Nikiforov.” Ivan slapped him on the back of his head as he always loved to do when greeting him and which Viktor always hated. He put his forearm over his shoulder and leaned down to inspect the notebook he was writing in. “Ooh, is that the English homework?” He snatched the notebook from under his hand ripping the metal coil along the tender underside of his arm.

“Hey! Give it back, debil!” He tried to snag the notebook back, but Ivan danced it out of reach, holding it up to his face to read it.

“Ooh, is this a love letter? Why’s it in English?”

Viktor scampered out of the tiny desk and ripped the notebook back from his grip. “Shut up. It’s notes for a skating program.”

“Looked like a love letter to me.”

“That’s cause you’re an idiot. You can barely even read English because you’re too lazy to do your own work and always copy mine.”

“Well I could read enough to see ‘love’ and ‘dancing together under the plum tree’ and something about still dancing under the sa-ku-ra, whatever that is, and the red leaves and snowflakes until you reach the plum blossoms again. Geez, that’s not just a love letter, that’s one of those horribly sappy love letters.”

“Predurak! It’s a skating program! You wouldn’t know art if it smacked you in the face.” He grinned and whapped the notebook against his nose.

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever.” His toothy grin cracked wide. “Is that for Egorov?”

“Egorov? What? No. Why would I write a skating program for him?”

“Yuri. You had his name written all over it.”

“You’re such a complete moron. You know that, right?”

“Which Yuri then? Kozlov?”

Viktor tightened the side of his mouth and raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

“Hey, if you’re weird enough to be writing a love letter to a guy, I wouldn’t put anything past you.”

He grabbed Ivan into a headlock and wrestled him down to the desk. “Marina’s coming in for her next class. Should I hold you here until she gets here so she can see you getting your ass kicked by ‘the pretty boy’?”

Ivan tried to wriggle free but gave up after a minute. “Fine, fine. I’ll drop it. Just let me up.”

He stepped back and grinned at him as Ivan straightened his clothes back out, pushing his hair back out of his face.

Satisfied that he was back in order, Ivan sat down on the desk kicking his free leg. “So, did you win the gold this weekend?”

“Silver.”

“You know you’re not supposed to match your hair color for medals. If you’re not winning gold, what good are you to anyone? You know that’s the main perk of being your friend. You’ve got that pretty face and the talent that makes girls want to talk to you. I mean if you’ve only got half of that going on then you only get half the number of girls, yes? And that’ll cause problems if there’s not enough for all the guys.”

“Or you guys could get personalities of your own and have them actually want to talk to you instead of disappointing them all when they get stuck with you.”

“Nah, why do that when we’ve got you? Besides aren’t you supposed to be like the promising star who puts Russia back on top? That’s what the news people say at least.” He stood up and slapped the back of his head. “You can’t slack off. You’ve got a whole country needing you to win gold. Later, Nikiforov.” He waved then stopped. “Almost forgot what I came in here for. You got that English homework for your bestest of friends?”

Viktor rolled his eyes and dug into his bag pulling out another notebook and tossed it to him. “I want it back by end of the next class.”

“Thanks, nerd.” His teeth took over his face again then sighed. “Life’s not fair. You get everything. Later, Vitya.” He waved with the notebook and disappeared out of the classroom.

Viktor sat back down and picked up his skating notes again, smoothing out the crumpled pages. He tried to pick up where he was before he was interrupted, but his thoughts were too cluttered to find the thread he had been following.

How was it that he somehow made promises to everyone simply by being born who he was? Why did being Viktor Nikiforov automatically mean he had to make certain he was perfect? His successes were brushed off as just his ‘natural talent’ while his flaws were condemned as though he committed the gravest of sins. And somewhere along the way, he had somehow made a promise to carry the entire country to victory; to rebuild an empire that had collapsed with the fall of the Soviet Union single-handedly, simply by doing well in a few competitions. He would have stepped off the ice long ago was it not for the fact that it was a part of himself. He couldn’t even say if he loved it or not. It just belonged as a part of him. And he didn’t really mind the promise. He wanted to win and bring pride to those who believed in him. He just hated that he always broke it. If he tried just a little harder, he might actually be what they expected him to be.    

Reading back over his notes, he frowned. A love letter. What an idiot. Yuri was his friend and still just a kid. People dance and tell stories about love all the time. He just wrote it with Yuri in mind because that’s how he always starts them off. They’d been skating together for so long now, Yuri at the center of his programs was just natural. With all of his surprises, he was an endless source of inspiration. How could he not be? A magical boy trapped in the ice? Of course, he was his muse. The only strange thing was how skating with Yuri was the realest thing in his life.

He didn’t quite understand how Yuri looked up to him the same as everyone else did, more most likely, but he never seemed to disappoint him even though he saw every mistake. Ten falls in a row would do nothing more than have him wait a little longer for him to get it right. He didn’t skate away while he hashed out a rough section of choreography over and over no matter how many times Viktor insisted it was okay and he’d come find him when he’d gotten it. He stayed and watched it all with a patient smile and a certainty in his eyes that he was simply waiting for it to be finished. It was like an expectation, but different... That’s what was missing from this program. Whatever it was that Yuri had in his eyes as he watched him... It was faith. Yuri believed in him, believed he could do it. He didn’t have goals that he expected Viktor to reach for him. Yuri just believed that he could reach what he was trying for. He smiled and picked up his pen. Now how to skate faith? Easy. It looked like Yuri.

***

“Yuri! Hi!” Viktor waved as he skated into view, smiling as he only ever did when Yuri was around.

“Hi, Viktor.” His eyes scrunched above his smile that always looked like he was slightly embarrassed by how much happiness he was showing. He ducked his head to tame his face as his cheeks dusted with a bit of red. “I missed you.”

“Yeah, I missed you too.” He dropped to the ice to offer his hand in their usual greeting then kissed his cheek before he switched to press his cheek to the ice and accept Yuri’s greeting. “Bad news and good news. Bad is that I have another competition this weekend.”

“But you just got back.” He pouted, his plump little lip glistening almost as much as his rich brown eyes.

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“Is it a new place at least?” His eyes brightened with Viktor’s nod. “Maybe that ice will work.”

“I doubt it. None of the others have.”

He sighed. “I know, but it’s worth trying, right?”

Viktor smiled. “Try eleven my time. That’s when we rented ice time.”

He looked up as he did some quick calculations then smiled and nodded. “Yeah. I’ll be here. So, what’s the good news?”

“Hold on, more bad first. I lost.”

“Oh, that’s too bad. This weekend I’m sure you’ll win.” He nodded firmly then smiled. “I’d give you gold if I were judge.”

He held back a smile. “You didn’t even see the other skaters.”

“You’re always my favorite. It doesn’t matter who else is on the ice.”

“Hey, Yuri?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t ever change.”

He gave a cheeky smile. “That can’t happen. I’m frozen in the ice, aren’t I? Not real enough to change.” A cringe flashed over his face. “I wish I could.”

He sat down and held his hand over Yuri’s inviting him to do the same. “Why would you say such a stupid thing?”

Yuri sat down on the ice as well and buried his face in his knees as he always did when he was upset then turned his head to look at him. “Am I too soft? Too much like a girl?”

“No. Why would you even think that?”

“Some of the guys say that.”

His eyes narrowed. “Are they bullying you again?”

“No. Just the same stuff. But they’re right. I’m not like the other guys. I’m more like the girls, and they’re easier for me to be friends with, and I don’t like… what the other boys like.”

“So what? Strangers actually think I am a girl more often then they think I’m a boy. It doesn’t matter. I’m still Viktor no matter what other people think. Besides, it’s not like it’s bad to be a girl. They call you soft why? Because you’re sweet? That just makes it easier to surprise them with how fierce you are when you take a chunk out of their arm.” He grinned as Yuri giggled. “Just be Yuri and don’t worry about fitting into some stupid box.”

“I wouldn’t mind actually being a girl. I just don’t like being what I’m not supposed to be.”

“Who are you supposed to be? You can be whoever you want to be. You can be a beautiful woman or the fiercest of warriors slaying dragons across the land or a graceful skater or the shy little boy who blushes too much or a compelling showman or anything you want to be. That’s the great thing about you. You don’t fit in any one box so you can go into any of them that you feel like. I don’t care which Yuri you choose to be. As long as you’re Yuri, I’m happy.”

He peered over again cautiously hopeful. “So, I’m not… wrong for you?”

“Wrong for me… I don’t think you phrased that quite right, but no. I don’t think you’re wrong in any way.” He smirked. “I made you up. How could you be anything but perfect to me?”

He gasped and stared at him with his stunned expression frozen in the ice then gave a quiet smile. “You’re the perfect one.”

“Nah. I’ve got a long way to go to reach perfect.” He shook his head and looked up at the faded banners hanging from the steel beams that held the names of long-retired champions.

“No. You’re there. You’re perfect to me.” He smirked. “I made you up, right? So, you’re perfect for me.”

Now it was his turn to gasp and sit silently stunned with his heart held tight while watching the red bloom across Yuri’s cheeks.

“Viktor? When will you believe that I’m real?”

He shook his head to clear his expression but tucked Yuri’s words away for later. “When I see you skating on the same ice as me. Same time. Same rink. Same side. Same ice.”

“Okay.” He nodded his promise. “That’ll be strange to be on the same ice. What would we do then?”

“We’d get married obviously.” He chuckled at Yuri’s shocked face. “You think we could experience a miracle like that and then spend our lives with someone else? No one else could match a connection like that.”

“You- You’d marry me? But I’m a boy.”

“Why not? You’re my favorite person and if the universe wants us together that badly, who are we to argue?”

“But… if we’re married… You’d have to… kiss me.”

“If we were married, I’d do a lot more than that.” He laughed then bit it back. “Oh. You don’t know about that yet, do you?”

His face turned bright red as he stared at his tightened fist. “I- I do.”

“Oh. Well then. You surprise me with your maturity yet again.”

“Have- have you ever…”

“Ever what?” His eyes snapped open as he realized what he was asking. “Oh. Um. No. I haven’t even kissed anyone. Well, one girl tried to kiss me, but I dodged it in time.”

“Oh. That’s… good.”

“You know what else is good?” He grinned and held up the notebook which Yuri couldn’t see. “I finished the new program. Wanna run through it with me?”

“Yeah!”

They jumped to their feet at the same time and fell right back in sync with each other. Yuri had learned to read his movements so well, he was nearly able to keep up on the very first run through. They smoothed off the edges of the program together until Viktor had to call for a break.

He swallowed hard to try to clear his breath enough to talk. “You’re getting really good, Yuri. I think you’re ready to compete. I mean real competitions. Not the little ice shows at your rink.”

“I don’t know about that. I’m not that good. I’m not anywhere close to you.”

“Well, I’m older. I’ve been doing this longer. And you’re still keeping up with me just fine. The step sequences you can do almost everything I’m doing. And your spins are pretty good too. You can’t do all the jumps I can yet, but you’ll get there. You’re ready, Yuri. Talk to your parents and your other coach.” He gave him his best smile. “I want to see you on the podium with me at World’s someday.”

Yuri gave him his heart-meltingly sweet smile right back. “Okay. I’ll ask them.” He looked down to hold back his expression again then peeked over. “Thank you, Viktor.”

He grinned, half at the adorableness of hearing that four-syllable version of his name and half sadistically. “Don’t thank me now. Now it’s time for coaching, and I have new ideas for you.”

Yuri pretended to groan then laughed. “Bring it on, coach.” He dashed away, knowing Viktor still hadn’t recovered yet making him heave as he tried to keep up.

“Yuri! No fair!”

He laughed and skated faster.

***

Viktor was running through his new program with his coach when the sound of clacking high heels on cement gradually got louder. A stern looking woman with brown hair pulled tight into a bun that looked like she was attempting to pull everything from her face that wasn’t taught skin and sharp bones followed them. She stood at the edge of the rink watching him. His coach nodded a greeting to her. After a few more run-throughs, his coach skated over to talk to her then called him over.

“Vitya, this is Liliya Baranovskaya, former prima ballerina at the Bolshoi. She came here today to speak to you.”

He had no idea what such a harsh looking woman would want with him, but he smiled and held out his hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Baranovskaya. What can I do for you?”

She frowned harder which somehow looked like she was trying to smile. “Manners. Such a rare quality in a young man. What was that program you were skating just now?”

“Oh, um, it’s called, _The Plum Blossom’s Courage_.”

“Is that one you created?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“It’s rather complex for your age. What’s it about?”

“It’s about two lovers who promise to stay by each other’s side, but the world sometimes keeps them apart and sometimes they waver in their promises, and they fight like summer storms, and sometimes their love cools like the winter, but every year the plum blossom has the courage to bloom with the snow still covering it. It sheds the snow from the land as the petals open and brings love back to them fresh with the spring. It’s them knowing that they can’t stop the rest, but they both have enough faith in each other to last through it all until the plum blossoms open again.”

Her already raised eyebrows lifted so high he thought they might slip off her forehead with that bun yanking on them. “You’re fourteen years old, correct?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Is it meant to be a duet?”

“No. Not really. I mean, I didn’t write it that way.”

“Really. It seems like something more for a pairs skater than a singles skater. And it looked like you had someone with you on the ice.” She smiled one of those small smiles that people too important for real emotions do though she still looked as harsh as ever. “I’m impressed. The emptiness of half of a duet in a performance like that is quite profound and makes that faith you speak of really stand out. And you created that intuitively.” Her face rehardened, and she nodded to his coach. “I assumed he was just hype, but I believe you and Karolina were right.” She turned back to Viktor. “I have an offer for you. My husband, Yakov Feltsman, is the top skating coach in the country. He doesn’t often have openings, but my old friend, your ballet instructor, insisted I come to see you. Come to Saint Petersburg to train with us, and we will bring you to the top.”

“Saint Petersburg?” He glanced behind him at the currently empty ice with an entire hour left still before Yuri would show. “It’s so far away.”

“It’s not that far. A short plane ride. Your coach has already talked to your parents, and they’ve approved it, so it’s your decision now.”

“But… coach Zakhar has always been my coach, and he’s a great one. I’m doing just fine with him.”

“He doesn’t have the right experience to take you all the way. Viktor, if you stay with him, you’ll be nothing more than another promising star who never made it. And in your case, that would be a tragic waste.”

“She’s right, Vitya. I hate to admit it because you’re my best and favorite student, but she’s right. I can’t hold on to you selfishly if doing so would disappoint so many people and hold you back from what you could be.”

“What I could be… What could I be, coach?” He couldn’t help the snap in his tone. Why did they have to offer this so far away from the only ice he wanted? It was a cruel offer, and they were looking like he should be grateful for it.

“What you could be is the best skater in the world. Not just the best, a legend. One people talk about for decades. You could be the hero that brings skating back to Russia. You know we need the infrastructure rebuilt if we have any hope of nurturing young skaters the way we used to. People only want to do that if they see what it offers. No one else has the right combination to show them. You’re…”

“What? Pretty? That’s what I can do that other talented skaters can’t, right?”

“No, Vitya, it’s not just that. Sure it plays a part, but you’ve got more than that. You’re-”

“Perfect.” Liliya cut him off. “Or you could be with us. The most compelling dancer on the stage isn’t the prettiest one. It’s the one that dances with everything she has because that’s what she is. She’s not a person, she’s a dancer and can’t be anything but that. She doesn’t choose to be on stage, her soul demands it, and she has no more choice in the matter than the audience does on if it can look away. That is you, is it not? You didn’t choose to be a skater, and you couldn’t stop even if you wanted to.”

He glared at her, refusing to unseal his lips and acknowledge her truth.

“You can’t waste something like that. It won’t let you. You either give it what it wants, or you will live a life carrying an unsatisfied soul, and that’s a hunger that won’t ever be satiated. Take it from someone whose soul still hungers for something my body just can’t do anymore. Don’t do it for Russia. Do it for you. Russia’s just along for the ride. Think it over and get back to me.” She handed him a card.

“Ms. Baranovskaya?” he called after her. “You said you could make me perfect, but perfect doesn’t exist. It’s not real. Nothing can be perfect.”

“You’re right. It never actually exists, but perfect is just a concept created by fragile human minds, and one of the easiest things to do is to make someone see what they believe to be true. So, you don’t have to be perfect; you just have to make the audience believe you are and that’s what they’ll see.”   

***

“Viktor!” Yuri dragged out each syllable of his name the way he knew Viktor loved to hear as he smiled and dropped to the ice and pulled back from his kiss still beaming as he dropped down to accept Viktor’s.

Viktor lingered against the ice as the confused ache that had started in his heart with Liliya’s offer intensified to the point of bringing thorny tears to his eyes. He sat up and tried to smile, but Yuri’s face still fell.

“Viktor? What’s wrong?” He sat down and offered his hand to hold through the ice so they could at least pretend they had a real connection.

“Yuri, I-” He had tried to just rip off the Band-Aid, but it hurt too much, and he chickened out at the first touch of pain. “I’m so confused. It hurts. A whole lot more than I thought and I don’t know what…” He glanced over at Yuri’s trusting face, waiting patiently through his stumbling words. “I… I got an offer to be coached by the best coach in Russia.”

“Really?” His face lit up. “That’s amazing! They chose you because they could see how good you are, right? And they could help you make it to World’s and the Grand Prix and everything like that, right?”

“Yeah, but, Yuri… I’d have to leave.”

“What?” His lower lip quivered for just a second before he shoved away what he knew to be true and instead clung to the hope that he was wrong. “What do you mean, ‘leave’?”

“The city. My parents. My friends. My teachers. My coach. Our- our ice. You…” The last word ached like a dream he couldn’t wake up from, the ones spent screaming at the emptiness for the one you needed to come back. The tears grew heavier in his eyes and harder to keep from falling. “I’d have to move away, and it takes a plane to get there, so I couldn’t come back here. Not very often at least.”

“Please don’t.” His tears fell heavy despite his look of disbelief. “Please don’t go. Please don’t leave me. I… I’ve only asked you for one other thing, to be my coach, so please, have I been good enough for you to ask one more? Please, Viktor. Don’t leave me.”

“I haven’t decided yet. Don’t cry, Yuri.” He wiped his face to tell him to wipe his out of habit, but when he pulled his glove away, he felt the cold streak of tears across his cheek. “I would have told her no right then, but she said some things that made me think and now I’m just so confused. I don’t want to leave you. I love skating with you, and it’s fun being your coach. You don’t have to beg me to stay because I want to stay too.”

“But… if you didn’t tell her no; if you’re thinking about it…”

He shook his head. “They want me to give up everything to be the best.”

“Who? Who wants you to give up everything?”

“Everyone. If anyone found out that I had an offer to be coached by this guy and I didn’t take it… They wouldn’t forgive me.”

“That doesn’t make any sense! It’s your life! Yours! Not theirs!”

“Yeah, I know. But… what if she’s right? What if I wouldn’t forgive me too? What if I spend my life wondering what if, never satisfied by anything else?” 

Yuri sucked in a quiet gasp and got on his knees, his head bowed low over his hardened fists against the ice. “Please, Viktor.” He lifted his head, and despite his begging, his tears had washed every trace of hope from his face. “Let me be enough for you. Please stay by my side, Viktor. I can’t skate without you. You’re my coach and my friend, and I need you. I… love you.”

“Yuri, I…” Yuri’s pain built on his until an idea smothered it all. “We can call each other! Right? You say you’re real, well if you are, we can call each other on the phone and email, and it won’t be quite the same but we can keep in touch, and when we’re old enough I’ll still keep my promise to visit you, or you can reach me on the same ice. Whichever happens first.” The discovery of an option that allowed him to have both brought the relief of a decision made. “Yeah, we can do that. Don’t worry, Yuri; it’ll be fine.” He smiled to reassure him that this decision wouldn’t end them. “Okay, you go get a pen and paper, and I’ll do the same, and I’ll be back in just a minute.”

Panic struck Yuri’s face harder than he’d ever seen it and he pounded the ice with his fists for a solid minute with Viktor in stunned confusion before he realized what was wrong. Yuri’s mouth was moving, but he couldn’t hear him. The realization of what that meant slammed his brilliant idea with the weight of every single ice sheet found on the ends of the earth as he watched Yuri’s panic take over from the wrong side of the ice. The ice fractured under the weight, and Yuri vanished.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Art is by Clarinda. Please, if you have a minute and a [Tumblr](http://clarinda0110.tumblr.com/post/175045095036/broken-ice-by-clarinda-more-angst-for-our), let her know if you liked it. (´ω｀★)


	5. Chapter 5

“I had suffered plenty of pain in my ten short years by then, but if I were to say that the heartbreak that came from seeing cracked, empty ice was the worst pain that I would ever feel, it would be easy to say it’s the claim of a child with no life experience and no real perspective, but to this day, just the scar alone is the worst pain in my life. When it was fresh, I truly thought it would kill me. People really can die of that, you know. A broken heart.”

I picked up my empty mug and peered inside, stupidly hoping that the clear glass didn’t accurately portray the levels of alcohol inside. He slid his across to me and summoned two more fresh beers to appear with the kind of magic found past the point of tipsy and in the territory of solidly wasted. My eyes flashed with glee at the fresh golden liquid in front of me as I took a sip that vanished back into the pain that moment in my story held as the beer disappeared down my throat.

“Mine was shattered, and honestly, it’s never quite been the same again. It’s stronger now, but more jagged where the pieces didn’t heal quite the way they were supposed to. Sometimes the edges drag against the flesh that surrounds it when my heart beats just a little wrong and cut new wounds that heal jagged too, expanding the reach of the first. Can a dream break your heart like that? Can your imagination be so powerful?”

***

It had been a week since the ice shattered and each day hurt worse than the one before. Stepping on the ice for his lessons was excruciating. He hadn’t even tried to go back at night because he was certain that if he saw that ice empty again, his heart would burst and he’d drop dead on the spot. His parents and his sister nagged him to tell them what was wrong, but they’d never believed that Viktor was real so telling them that he was gone would be pointless. He was in his room with nothing to do but hurt when his mom knocked and opened the door.

“Yuri!” She sang his name sweetly as she often did just because and always did when he was sick or hurt. “Come out for dinner. I made katsudon.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“What? You’re never not hungry for katsudon. Are you still not feeling well? Do I need to bring you to the doctor?”

“I’m fine.”

“Good. Then come out anyways. Your father and I have something to tell you.”

He dragged himself to his feet and followed her out which shouldn’t have been able to make the pain worse, but it seemed as though every move he made tore him open even further. He sat down in front of the steaming bowl of katsudon that looked like it was made of sand and maggots and his stomach churned in revulsion.

“We have good news!” His dad’s voice that always seemed to hold a laugh just waiting to come out no matter what he was saying had him fighting the urge to yell at him to shut up because having any kind of joy shoved in his face made the shattered glass in his chest gleam. “We decided that you were right. You should be competing so we’ve processed the paperwork, and you’re all registered for a couple of events this fall. Depending on how they go, we’ll see which competitions later in the season you should attend. You’ll have to pass the qualifying test first, but Kumiko says that shouldn’t be a problem for you at all.” He stared at him with a huge smile along with the rest of his family.

The maggots in the bowl in front of him squirmed. He wanted to get away from them as quickly as he could. “I want to quit skating.”

“What? Why? Just last week you were excited about competing. What happened, Yuri?” For once that laugh was gone.

“I just don’t like it anymore.”

“What? You love skating. Don’t quit something you love because you’re in a bad mood. You’ll regret it the rest of your life if you do.”

His hurt took the sidestep into anger. “Then I’ll regret it! People make stupid choices because they’re so afraid of regretting something later even though that choice ruins everything now!”

“Yuri, I-”

“I’m quitting! That’s it! I don’t want to skate anymore!” He got up and ran for the door.

“Yuri! Where are you going?!” his mother called out.

“I…” He had no idea where he was planning to go, but he had to tell her something. “I’m going to Minako’s!”

“O-okay, dear. Please be careful.”

He nodded and ran out the door letting it slam behind him. He should have just done what he said and headed to the studio, but he found his legs carrying him to the metal door that was his secret passage to a magical world which no longer existed. He knew it was a stupid idea, but he couldn’t stop himself. He had to see if he was really gone. He put his skates on and passed over every inch of the ice looking for even a single glimpse of him. It was way too early for him to show, but sometimes when Yuri couldn’t wait and showed up early, he could catch Viktor still in his lesson, and he would follow him around trying to make him laugh while Viktor tried his best to pretend he wasn’t there. He didn’t do that too often because he didn’t want to annoy him, but Viktor had never seemed to mind it when he did. And maybe if he had already moved his schedule had changed too. He knew better than to expect to see him again, but he had to look for him just one last time before he left the ice for good.

One hour passed followed by another silent hour and midnight ticked into one with nothing but the steady glow of that light in the office that was always on. He stopped in the spot where he had first seen him then dropped to his knees and pressed his lips to the blank ice. “Goodbye, Viktor. I hope your new life makes you happy.”

He left his last tears on the ice then took off his skates and put them in the locker without bothering to wipe them down because it didn’t matter if they rusted anymore. It was late, but he didn’t want to make himself a liar, and he needed anything to distract him from the pain, so he headed to Minako’s apartment. It took several rings of the doorbell before she stumbled over to it, knocking something over on the way and cursing softly from behind the door before she opened it with a bleary snarl on her face.

“Yeah, whaddya- Yuri! What are you doing here this late? You worried your mother you know. You should go home and tell her where you’ve actually been. And what’s this nonsense they’re telling me about you quitting skating?”

“I…” Tears flooded his eyes. “Minako…”

“Come here.” She grabbed him into her arms and strangled him into one of her hugs, pulling him into the apartment.

Clutching her waist, he buried his face into her shoulder as the sobs started up. “He’s gone.”

“What was that?”

“He’s gone, and he’s never coming back.”

“Yuri, calm down and tell me what’s wrong. I can’t understand you when you’re crying so hard.” She rubbed his back and combed his hair back trying to nudge his face up so she could hear him.

He shook his head and held her tighter.

“Okay, okay. Just, shh, Yuri. It’s okay. Come here. Let’s sit down.” She walked over to the couch with him still clinging to her. She picked up her phone and dialed as she kept rubbing his back. “Hiroko? Sorry to call so late. Yuri just showed up at my door, and he’s really upset, but I don’t know why yet… Mmmhmm...” She nodded along as his mom talked. “Yeah, let’s do that. No, no, it’s not a problem at all. Get some sleep, sweetie. Good night.” She hung up the phone and turned back to him. “Alright, do you want to tell me what’s wrong?”

He shook his head.

“Okay. Your mom says you haven’t eaten anything. Are you hungry?”

He shook his head again.

“No? Not even for my world famous ‘fixes any hurt tea’?”

He lifted his head just barely enough to talk, his words still muffled in her shirt. “You can’t call it world famous if only three people other than you know about it.”

“I can when those three people all live in other countries.” She sniffed indignantly then smiled. “So?”

He wasn’t hungry, but his throat did hurt from all of the crying. He gave a small nod then sat back to let her get up. She came back a few minutes later with two mugs of hot, creamy tea, pale green like a piece of milky jade, sweetened, and spiced with something she swore would only be revealed in her will. She turned off the lights in the rest of the apartment and sat down next to him with only the lamp beside the couch on. They drank their tea with Minako being uncharacteristically quiet as if she’d scare him off from the drink like the antelope when it spots the lurking crocodile. He drained the last drop then she took his mug from him and set it next to hers on the table.

“Wanna tell me now why you’re upset and wanting to quit skating?”

He shook his head.

“Are the boys at school being mean again?”

He shook his head. He wanted to tell her, but there was no explaining it to anyone else. He was just alone with his pain and the more they tried to pry it from him, the more it hurt.

“Okay, I’ll talk then. I think you quitting skating is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. Life gets hard sometimes, but you can’t just quit the things you’re passionate about. Do you know how rare it is to have something that you’re passionate about the way you are about skating? Most people don’t get that. They wish they had something to love that much, something they’d do anything for.”

“They’re stupid then.”

“Huh?”

“Loving something that much… even at its best, it hurts because it wants everything from you. You’ll risk everything and take all of the bruises and try harder than you can really take to keep up because you know what it’ll feel like when it’s gone. You give everything because passion doesn’t keep promises and it always goes with whoever can give more.”

“Yuri, I… I don’t understand. You’re the one who’s leaving your passion behind. Skating is still right there. It’ll always be there. It can’t leave you. It’s always just waiting for you to put your skates on and do whatever you want with it. You don’t have to compete if that’s what’s bugging you. You don’t have to be the best to keep skating. If that were true, only one person could ever do it.”

“It hurts too much, Minako.” He looked over as his tears started up again. “I just can’t skate anymore. It hurts too much when the ice is empty.”

“The ice is empty? I don’t-” She interrupted her sentence to pull him back into her arms when she saw his tears quaking in his little body. She leaned back against the pillow propped against the arm of the couch and smoothed her hand over his hair as she held him tight against her. “Shh… It’s okay, sweetie. It’s okay. Just get some sleep.” She kissed his forehead then switched off the light. “Yuri, if the ice is empty… fill it.”


	6. Chapter 6

Stepping out of the car, Viktor’s breath curled in the sharp air as he joined Liliya at the trunk to retrieve their suitcases. Liliya reached for hers, but he grabbed it before she could and hoisted it from the trunk. The corner of her mouth pulled up into a small smile as he pulled his suitcases from the trunk and set them down so he could rearrange the hair out of his face and back around his shoulders where it belonged. They wheeled them into the house, and Viktor paused in the grand entryway.

“Well, don’t just stand there. Come in.” Liliya hung her coat up on the rack in the closet then waved her hand for his.

He peeled off his jacket and stepped out of his shoes, and she gathered both and tucked them away.

Moving into the house, she gestured for him to follow. “Make yourself at home but don’t break anything, get anything dirty, or move anything out of place.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“This is the kitchen. We have breakfast at six, lunch at twelve when not at work or school, and dinner at six.”

“Six for dinner? Why so early? I skate at six.”

“The rink is closed then. I go to bed early, so we eat early.”

“But I have to skate at six. Please, isn’t there any way I can skate then? I can always eat later, and I’ll be quiet, so I don’t disturb you.”

“The rink is closed. It’s just not possible.”

“All of them? Every rink in Petersburg is closed by six? Please, Ms. Baranovskaya, I have to be skating then. Even if it’s a pond or something. I have to be on the ice.” He knew it was stupidly irrational, but he still felt compelled to at least try. To skate with Yuri even if they couldn’t see each other.

“You are not skating on a pond! Do you have any idea of how dangerous that is? Even if you don’t fall in, they’re too rough to do any real skating on. You’ll get injured if you try.”

“Please.” He clasped his hands in front of him and gave her the biggest eyes he could manage while trying to hold back the panicking tears. “I have to be on the ice at six.”

She sighed and tapped her fingers against the arm she had folded under them. “Why is the time when you skate so important to you?”

“I- I’m just always on the ice at six. I have to be there then. I made a promise.” He shouldn’t have said this last part. The tears in his throat raised higher and holding them back was almost impossible.

She sighed harder and dug her fingers into her slender arm just until little divots appeared. “I should have known there’d be a catch. There’s always a catch with people with talent like yours. I’ll speak to Yasha and see what we can do.”

“Thank you!” In his relief he forgot her sharp edges and launched himself at her, wrapping his arms tightly around her tiny frame.

“Oof! What’s this?” She patted his shoulder then pushed him back and smoothed out her dress. “Okay, that’s enough of that. Let’s continue the tour.”

She led him around the elegant white and gold house pointing out various rooms along the way that all more or less looked like the same clinical elegance. She stopped at one room that overlooked the river from a massive window that had a fireplace opposite it and books stacked on every table in a surprising disarray from the rest of the house and the woman who lived in it. He walked over to the table that held the largest stacks and studied the covers on top turned every which way, craning his head to read them.

“Do you like books?” Her tone was a little softer than usual.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Which ones are your favorite?”

“All of them.” He picked up one that had a tree with pink blossoms on it on the cover and was trying to figure out if they were plum blossoms when she appeared next to him with another book in her hand.

“That one’s a good one. You can read it if you like.”

“Really?”

“Yes, as long as you’re careful with them you may read any of them you like. Here.” She put the book she was holding into his hands. “This one’s good too.”

He glanced at the cover that had a man in a fishing boat then turned it over to read the back cover. “Thank you.”

“Come. Let’s get your things from the entryway, and I’ll show you your room.”

He set the books down in the stack and went to follow her, but she didn’t move.

“You didn’t want to bring them with you?”

“I thought it would be best if I left them here. That way I don’t accidentally lose them.” He looked over at the couch between the window and the fireplace that was draped softly in a sheet and had some colorful pillows piled on the ends. Of everything she had shown him, this one room seemed the most like what someone might call a home. “And it would be nice to read them here if that’s okay.”

She smiled and nodded. “It’s my favorite room too.” She hardened off the ends of her smile, returning to her natural stern expression. “Just don’t disturb me while I’m reading.”

“I wouldn’t dream of doing something so awful.”

She laughed with no real sound, just a jumping in her chest and a smile on her face below the hand she pressed to it. She stifled the laugh away and waved her hand at him. “Come.”

They collected the suitcases, and she led him to a room that looked much like the rest of the house and left him to get settled in with instructions to meet her downstairs at four. He called his parents to assure them that he got there safely and gave his promises to make them proud and put everything away then still had a couple of hours before he was supposed to meet her. He wandered down to the room by the river and found Liliya there with a cup of tea and a book. She glanced up when he came in but went right back to reading. Viktor picked up the book with the flowering tree and joined her on the sofa, propping against the arm and putting his feet up on the seat. She opened her mouth to speak then closed it and watched him for a moment before pouring another cup of tea and handing it to him. He thanked her and took a sip then she nodded and went back to her book. He curled up into the pages, turning each one faster than before after discovering that they were, in fact, plum blossoms.

At four, she closed her book with a snap and waved at him to follow.

“Go get your skates. It’s time for you to meet your new coach.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

He hurried off to follow her instruction, grabbing his skating socks and gloves as well. They walked to the rink, which was only a few blocks away, where she introduced him to a man even harsher than her with the deepest scowl he’d ever seen etched onto a face. After a moment’s hesitation, he extended his hand.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Feltsman. Thank you for taking me on as your student. I hope to make you proud.”

He glowered at his hand without unfolding his own. “What are you wasting time for chattering away? Get your skates on and get on the ice.”

“Yasha! Don’t scold the boy for having manners.” Liliya’s voice made them both cower. “Do you know how hard I have to work usually to put them into them? I will not have you ruining my side with your nasty attitude.”

Yakov grumbled something unintelligible then shook his hand which was still extended in his sudden fear. “Nice to meet you too. Get on the ice.”

“Yes, sir!” He ran off to put his skates on while Liliya chewed on her husband’s rough edges.

An hour later, Viktor was seconds away from collapsing on the ice and never getting up again while the angriest man he’d ever met continued his tirade that he just couldn’t obey anymore.

“I… I can’t. I’m sorry. I just can’t do it again.” His hands pressed hard on his trembling knees while he tried not to hurl.

Yakov glared at him then turned to Liliya. “What did you bring me this one for? He’s weak. He has no stamina at all. His form is sloppy even when he is trying to do what I’ve said. That’s what I get for trusting you to go alone. I thought I said to make sure he could really do it.”

“He can. You didn’t even give him a chance to show you what he can do before you started tearing him apart. He has the talent.”

“What am I going to do with talent in a boy too weak to use it?!”

They continued their fight like a couple of feral dogs while the edges of Viktor’s vision went in and out. He had forgotten to put his hair up in his rush, and it hung soaked and heavy, clumping into spikes and chilling him like icicles had frozen onto his head. He stared at the blank ice below him knowing that he had made the biggest mistake of his life.

“I’m sorry, Yuri. I didn’t know. I didn’t know this would happen. I’m so sorry. I’ll find a way to undo it. I promise.” He felt the tears rolling down his cheeks, and he didn’t have the strength left to stop them. He fell to his knees and pressed his hands to the ice. “I should have just said, ‘I love you too.’ I don’t know how you could have meant that. I’m not anywhere close to being someone anyone could love, but I should have at least told you that what I feel for you is what I’m pretty sure people call love. I know I failed to keep my promise, and I have no idea how to keep the one I just made, but I've only ever asked you to stay by my side so I can still hold you to that, yes? You always seemed so sure that it was possible so you must have a way, right? Please, Yuri, please reach me.”

“What did you bring me, Liya? One hour of training and the boy is crying. I can’t do anything with this. Come on, get off the ice. Time to go.”

His head snapped up. “Please let me stay! It’s almost six! I have to be here!”

“You can’t even skate! What are you going to do on the ice? We close soon.”

“Please! I have to be on the ice! I can skate! Tell me what you want me to do, and I’ll do it as long as it’s on the ice!” He forced himself back up on his feet trying to prove his words.

Liliya said something to him too quietly for him to hear that made his face boil red with anger and set them off into another spat. Finally, Yakov turned to him and grumbled in resignation.

“Fine. You can stay. I’ll leave Boris here to watch over you, but don’t you dare think of doing anything more than a double! If I hear of you doing something stupid even once this ends. Do you hear me?”

“Yes, sir! I promise! Thank you.” He fought to stay on his feet even though his legs wanted anything but that so Yakov wouldn’t change his mind before he left.

Finally alone on the ice, he had nothing left in him to do anything more than search every inch of it, starting down one line and back up another, keeping his eyes fixed down, so he wouldn’t miss a single flicker.

That night after eating the reheated plate of food Liliya left for him in the fridge, he tiptoed past their room to get to his where muffled voices stopped him in his tracks. He should have kept going, but he’d heard his name and couldn’t stop himself from listening harder at their door.

“… ‘Russia’s Greatest Coach.’ You know you wouldn’t be half the coach you are without me. You couldn’t even see why the boy has no stamina. He puts everything he has into every move. He doesn’t save anything for later. He’s not like your other students that half-ass everything and you have to drive them with a cattle prod to get anything out of them. If you’re too stupid to see that you’re going to wreck the greatest talent ever put into your hands.”

“You can’t train like that. How am I going to teach him anything if I can only get an hour out of him a day?”

“You expect me to do everything for you? Figure it out, ‘Russia’s Greatest Coach.’ I’m doing my job. You do yours.”

“And the boy’s crazy with this insane business of needing to skate at six. Do you know Boris told me that he spent two hours doing nothing but going up and down the ice staring at it? He didn’t even lift his head once. What’s the point of him being there if he’s not even skating?”

“Does it really matter? He’s just wired differently like everyone with talent is. At least his quirks are relatively easy to deal with.”

“I don’t like it. It can’t be a healthy thing for him to do and he’s wasting the precious energy he does have on doing absolutely nothing! I think you’re overlooking the problems because you’ve already developed a soft spot for the boy.”

“I have not! I just don’t have my head up my ass! Remove yours, and you’ll see what I saw.”

“Don’t go all soft and waste resources on a bad investment just because you couldn’t have children and-”

“Oh, don’t you go there. You know-”

Their fight had definitely devolved into places he shouldn’t be listening to, so he tiptoed away to his room. He changed and climbed into bed with every part of him aching, but he hardly noticed it with the pain that had settled in his heart like it had made a home there. He clutched the spare pillow to his chest and let the tears fall.

“Please find me, Yuri, and I’ll never make another choice that pulls me from your side again. Please don’t give up on me.”

***

His first season with Yakov and Liliya was coming to an end without a single change from that first day other than a few medals added to his name and a year added to his age. Yakov still bemoaned his weakness and lack of stamina with every session though he had gotten stronger. Strong enough at least to endure his training that felt less like teaching and more like a pack of wolves had been sicced on him and keep skating in the hours he searched for Yuri so Yakov wouldn’t put an end to it.

He now faced his last interview of the season having failed to bring his gold medal performance from Nationals into Worlds instead finishing just off the podium. Staring at the empty holes of the microphones all shoved in his face and clamoring demands for him to fill their ravenous hunger, he wondered what their offense was that made the goddess Demeter curse them with this insatiable hunger and why he should be sold in their futile attempt to end it.

“Viktor, Viktor.” An older reporter shook his head at him as if softly scolding a beloved child. “We can see Yakov’s unmistakable mark on you in the new technical skills you’ve gained since beginning your training with him, but when comparing to your performances in previous seasons, there’s much more inconsistency in your PCS scores. Are you feeling more stress with moving up to the international stage or is it just more of a challenge than you anticipated?” In other words, can you sum up why you failed us? Preferably in a pithy little soundbite we can package up and sell, thanks.

“You’re absolutely right, Mr. Skilsky. My PCS scores have had a little more spice in them this season. I like surprising the audience and keeping them on their toes.” He shook his head to get the long hair out of his face so the cameras could see the wink and smile he punctuated his statement with.

“Are you saying you intended to underperform today?”

“No, not at all! It’s just that when you’re trying something new, it doesn’t always work out the way you expect.” That or he’d spent last night crying harder than usual in his sudden desperation to hear Yuri sing his name so sweetly with those chubby cheeks filled to bursting with his smile. It’d been so long since he’d last seen it, he was beginning to doubt that any of it had ever happened. Yuri too perfectly filled what he needed: someone who smiled as he cheered him on and welcomed him back with an even bigger smile no matter if he came back empty-handed or not. Of course, he’d make up something like that. It was the most logical explanation. But if he’d made him up then, why couldn’t he now? Last night, he'd needed Yuri to show up and tell him that it wasn’t all in his head. That as crazy as it seemed, he really was loved like that by someone. Yuri never came. His heart hated that truth.

“Ah, I see. The blind energy of a passionate youth is afoot.” He chuckled fondly. “Well, may I offer a little of my gray-haired wisdom to the new generation? Maybe save the experimentation for when the stakes are a little lower and go with the tried and true where it counts. We all have high hopes for you. You have such an incredible talent at your disposal. We’re all hoping you’ll be able to make full use of it.” Right. He’s just not trying hard enough. Talent is some mystical pool he has the key to and if he has the audacity to hoard it, well, damn, the very least he can do is not waste it by letting it spill through his flaws.

His smile felt heavy with the pain that was his now permanent companion sitting on it. “Thank you for cheering me on. The support I receive from everyone at home means so much to me, and I hope to do better next year and turn that support into a solid investment in Russia’s pride.” 

The cacophony of, “Viktor! Over here!” rang out while Yakov looked on from behind them with his scowl burning with the screaming lecture he’d had to halt before he’d thoroughly destroyed him.

***

He sat curled up on the couch with Liliya reading their books with the fresh breeze of spring blowing in off the river and an empty summer ahead of him. Her edges were just as sharp as when they met, but he’d found the one bright spot among them. He could rely on them as a place to hold onto. She never let him closer than an arm’s length, but never pushed him further than that either. She demanded just as much as Yakov but never lost her temper with him or drove him harder than what he could take. She was steady and reliable though he knew she was filled with passion by the way she still danced.

She had marched him solidly forward yet after his weak showing at Worlds she’d had to defend herself against Yakov’s claims that because it was his PCS scores that were suffering, it was her that wasn’t doing her job. He’d wanted to burst into the room to defend her, but of course, that wasn’t an option. He needed to know how to fix it, how to make himself into someone reliable too so his flaws didn’t hurt and disappoint everyone. He kept glancing at her and then back at his page to read the same paragraph again.

Liliya sighed and snapped her book shut then laid it on her lap with a gentle tap on the cover. “Yes, Vitya?”

“What? I didn’t say anything.”

“Your thoughts are screaming over there. I can’t read over them so spit it out.”

He sat up, fingering the embossed letters on the hardcover book in his hands. “Well, it’s just that you said that I could make the audience believe I was perfect, but how do I do that? All they see is what I could do if I was just a little bit better.”

“Well, they’re not wrong. In order for them to see perfection, you first have to be as close to it as possible.”

“Oh.”

“Don’t worry about that. You’ve paid the price and given yourself over to be molded by the best in Russia. We won’t fail you.”  

His lips parted with the quick gasp he took to feed the flutter in his heart. For all the promises he was asked to keep, this was only the second anyone had ever made him.

“It’s the second part that’s harder.” She appraised him, tapping her fingers on her crossed arms, then looked down for a moment as a spark of sadness ignited on her face. “Vitya… can you be happy if you never quite reach all the way? Does it have to be perfect that you reach for you to feel satisfied?”

“Happy? What does that have to do with this?”

Her steady gaze waited for an answer.

He clawed at the soft fabric stretching over his knee that was still aching from a fall the other day. Digging into the bruise just a bit, his voice rasped below the tears that always had a hand resting on his throat. “I don’t know how to be happy. Not like this.”

She nodded slowly then set her mouth. “You have to hold all of them at a distance. You can’t let anyone look too closely. You can’t let them in because that leaves them free to explore every part of you however they desire, and their desires are never kind.”

“Huh? But they’re watching me. How can I prevent that if that’s the whole point?”

“In the ballet, the best seats are not the front row where you can see the sweat on the dancers or the slight wobbles that mark losses of balance. When you’re looking for perfection, even the audience knows that the best seats are from a bit of a distance where details are blurred in favor of the overall picture.

“For interviews and conversations, this is a matter of giving them less. You always give them too much trying to be cute and clever, and they use anything you give them to tear you apart.”

He nodded, eyes fully opened to that wonderful tendency. “But I don’t say anything truthful to them.”

“Whether it’s the truth or not, it’s still too much. You can be cute and clever, you have the charm to pull that off, but only around empty answers that they’ll spend endless amounts of energy trying to decode the meaning of.” She smiled. “It’s a rather amusing pastime actually, watching them wrack their brains over nothing. And if you can’t come up with cute and clever, better to give them absolutely nothing. Saying things like, ‘I can’t remember, I haven’t decided, I’m not at liberty to discuss.’ Phrases like that are your protection. Use them liberally.”

The breeze picked up and ruffled the curtain on its way to carry her rescuing words to the boy drowning in his life. He gripped onto their wisdom as his only survival.

“On the ice, it’s a little trickier. You’ll never actually be perfect out there as you said so instead you must be a magician. They achieve their feats of illusion right in front of an audience watching their every move just dying to call them out on their fakery, but the best ones pull it off because they have mastered the art of directing their attention where they want it, keeping it far away from where they don’t.

“You’re lucky as you have a natural glamor and grace that lends itself perfectly to this task. That’s what draws people to you. When you get it right, you let people glimpse something they’ve only ever dreamed of. The problem is that you don’t know how to control that flash so when things go wrong it’s like a spell being broken and it leaves your audience feeling tricked. A magician failing to guide their attention and letting the audience glimpse the inner workings hasn’t just failed a little. He’s failed completely at his only true task.”

He sank back against the arm of the couch as her observation worked through his mind, clearing out the fog. She did understand. Completely. This was the answer he gave up everything for. He let her every word shape his mind now just as she shaped his body.

“Skating is nearly impossible to pull this off with because the precision you must achieve to stay on the line of holding the spell is almost inhuman and on top of that, you must be giving everything to directing their attention. But I think if anyone can master this, it’s you.”

“Really?”

“You have what it takes. You just have to learn to control it.” That sadness settled deeper over her with every word she said as his lifted with his hope being restored. He didn’t understand why she would feel that way about helping him, but he couldn’t give that concern any more than a glance.  

“Yakov may be a brute of a man, but he will give you the technical skills you need as your base as long as you can let him do his work despite his unpleasantness. For the rest, keep their attention moving. Always on you, but always moving. Don’t let them settle on one thing to observe for too long because they’ll inevitably find the flaws. Use those little flashes you do naturally whenever you need to cover a flaw. If you must fall, get up with grace as though you just paused to tie your skate and make the very next move sparkle, so their minds don’t linger on the fall. Use your smiles and your winks to enthrall them. Use your elegance to make them sigh wistfully. Use your glamor to thrill them. Anything you can do with more flair, do it. You know that little head shake you do to get the hair out of your face?”

He nodded stiffly, rapt in her words.

“Do it on purpose. Do it with flair. Find the drama in every little moment and use it. But don’t go overboard. You can’t let it look anything but natural and effortless. Don’t ever let them see you trying to direct their attention. Even if you’re struggling, don’t ever let them see you struggle. That’s your biggest mistake right now. You want people to recognize that you’re working just as hard as everyone else is and that you have to fight for it beyond your limits, but that’s a story for an underdog. People say they love rooting for an underdog, and that may be true, but they also like believing in magic and seeing the unattainable become nothing but a trifle in a master’s hand. You are not an underdog. You never have been, you never will be. You are a dream. Don’t wake them up.”

Yuri’s face flashed faintly in his mind, the moment when they woke up, the agony of having something like that stripped away. No wonder people rejected him so coldly when he dared to be human. Did Yuri now hate him for waking him up? He couldn’t blame him if he did. He failed him worse than he had ever failed anyone.

She pressed the back of her fingers to her mouth and closed her eyes. Her hand fell back to her lap, pulling her slackened shoulders forward briefly before she weakly straightened back up. “This isn’t just for skating and interviews. You’re already becoming a darling of the media, and it will only pick up as you win more titles. You have to assume that everyone you meet will sell every one of your secrets for a ruble. It doesn’t matter how nice they seem. Even people you’ve known before are not immune from the lure of a moment of fame and a few extra dollars in exchange for selling you out. And dating… doesn’t go well with this life. It generally requires trust and openness, and those are two things you can’t afford. One story can destroy everything you’re working for. One secret revealed. One nasty fight out in public. One jilted ex-lover making up stories about you and you won’t even have a chance to fight back. Magic is a fragile thing, and if that’s what you’re seeking to create, you must protect yourself in all areas.”

He nodded, his hair tossing about trying to show with that one gesture that he understood better than she did just how fragile magic is. “It all makes sense, but it seems impossible. Are you sure I can do it?”

“If it were easy, any idiot could do it.” Her eyes seemed to ache as she watched his unblinking attention on her words. She looked away to the river before she spoke again. “I’m certain you can.”

They sat like that quietly with people’s voices on the street coming in through the open window above the soft rush of water. Before she turned back to him, her fist pressed just below her eye for a moment as if she were dabbing away a tear. “I wanted to give you a gift for doing so well this season. Come with me.” She slapped her book onto the table and stood up, smoothing out her dress.

He jumped up to follow her. “Really? But I lost.”

“Fourth at Worlds your first year out is a decent showing, and you did more than well enough overall. You won Nationals. I certainly think that alone deserves a reward.”

***

They pulled up in the car at the animal shelter, and he tried to tame his hopes that leapt eagerly. “Why are we here?”

“You love animals, yes?”

He nodded, afraid to say anything to change the path they were on.

“Then we’re here so you can pick out whatever you like.”

“Really?” The always present tears leapt quickly to his eyes though, for the first time, it wasn’t from pain.

She sighed and looked up at the ceiling. “I’m afraid of what problems this is going to bring me, but really.”

“Thank you.” He launched at her once again, and she hugged him as tightly as he did her for a moment before she pushed him back.

“Come now. Before I change my mind.” She gave him a small smile as she climbed out of the car.

He raced ahead of her in his excitement and grabbed the door for her to walk through as she gave him the approving smile she always had whenever he showed civility. He bounced on his toes while she spoke to the woman at the front desk and had to hold himself back from racing ahead again as the woman led them to the deafening kennels. As he looked down the rows of stacked cages, his heart crashed.

“There’s so many of them.” He walked to the first puppy straining against the cage begging him to take him home along with the dozens of others doing exactly the same. He stuck his fingers in, and the small, white puppy nipped at them. He moved along the rows trying to give each of them just a little love while hating the fact that he could only choose one. In the middle of the row, down on the very bottom cage, soft brown eyes looked up at him above fluffy cheeks and a sweet smile with a little pink tongue poking out. He knelt down to greet him, and the puppy looked at him for a moment as if he couldn’t believe he was there then leapt against the cage to welcome him. He could almost hear him calling out a sweet, four-syllable, “Viktor!” When he couldn’t break through the cage, the puppy sat back down and seemed to pout at the presence of a barrier. Viktor sat on the floor and opened the cage, and the little brown puppy raced into his arms, licking every tear that had begun to spill down his cheeks. He buried his face in his fluff as they fell harder and the puppy relaxed, content to just be snuggled up to him.

“This one.” His voice strained through the puppy’s soft curls.

“Are you sure? You don’t want to look at the rest or see the cats?” Liliya asked.

He nodded and looked up at her, tears dripping onto the pink tongue darting out to catch them, clutching the puppy as tight to him as he dared to without hurting him. “This one. Please?”

Her lips curled up slightly as she nodded and he turned back to the puppy to bury his sobs in his warm curls.

***

Yakov was furious when he found out. Their fight that evening carried easily through the door and Viktor couldn’t stop himself from listening when he knew it was going to be about him. He clutched Makkachin to his chest while Yakov raged.

“You don’t know a goddamn thing, Yasha! He’s cried himself to sleep every single night since he got here! And what I just did to the boy… He needs this so don’t you dare try to take it away!”

“A puppy. No one needs a puppy! I don’t want to have to deal with a puppy after working all day! Either it goes, or I do!”

“Fine! Then go!”

“Liya.” He gasped as if she’d struck him. “You can’t mean that.”

“I do! I mean it so just go!”

“Liya…”

“Get out of here! Go!” There was a soft thump like a pillow hitting a solid object.

He was so frozen in his shock that really shouldn’t have existed, he didn’t move away from the door as Yakov opened it. He just stared open-mouthed as Yakov stared back then turned and headed down the hallway. Liliya was in the bedroom, the door still open. Her sobs stirred him into cautiously going in, stepping around the gray pillow on the floor by the door.

Her hair quivered around her delicate shoulders, and he understood why this was the first time he’d ever seen it released from the bun. All of her sharp edges and clean lines became brittle without her tight control. She looked up as he entered and tried to quickly wipe her tears away. “I’m sorry, Vitya. I didn’t mean for you to hear that.”

“I can give him back.” He cried as he said it, but he meant it. “I don’t want you to get divorced because of me.”

“Oh, come here.” She held open her arms that closed tightly around him and Makkachin as he approached. “It’s not your fault. Not at all. This has been a long time coming, and it has nothing to do with a dog.”

“But it’s not just the dog. You fought about me all the time. I’m sorry, Liliya. I didn’t mean to make this happen.”

She sat down on the bed, holding him tighter. “Shh… you didn’t do anything wrong. Our problems started long before you got here. We just… didn’t work.”

Her sobs started up heavily, and Viktor did his best to hug her as tightly as she deserved for everything she did for him while Makkachin tried his best to grab every tear from both of their faces before they could settle in.

With Makkachin now snoring softly in his arms and their tears quieted to sniffles, Viktor looked up at her face, red and puffy, every sharp edge crumbled away. “What happens now?”

She smoothed his hair away to kiss his forehead then held him tight again. “I don’t know.”


	7. Chapter 7

There were a lot of people Yuri owed his skating career to, but Minako was the one who deserved the most credit without question. She had been the one to tell him to skate, and she was the one who used every bit of her passion to keep him going when his was gone.

In the morning before she sent him home to face the consequences of his actions, she stood at the door looking at him with a decision toying in her mind. He knew that look, and it always meant trouble for him. She narrowed her eyes. “Is it skating or something else?”

“It’s… it has to do with skating.”

She shook her head. “Not what I asked, sweetness. Is it the physical and mental act of moving your body on the ice that you don’t like anymore or is it something else?”

“It’s… something else.”

She smiled, and it was the one that always made him worry. It was the smile of a decision made. “Go home, Yuri. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow? But I don’t have dance class tomorrow.”

Her dangerous smile deepened as her voice sweetened. The deadliest of combinations. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Yuri.”

He didn’t know which he dreaded more as she waved and closed the door: the certain end of his life that waited for him at home or living to see tomorrow.

The next day when he saw that same smile waiting for him outside of class, he regretted instantly that his parents had let him off too easy. He’d had to come clean about sneaking into the rink, but it turned out they’d known for years. His coach had informed them when he first started as that light that was always on in the office was her still working. He’d wondered why he’d never gotten in trouble for it, but they had decided that if the worst of his childhood crimes was to sneak in for more practice, they were lucky. He would definitely not be getting off easy anymore. He stopped and ravaged his mind for a way out of Minako’s grip, but she grabbed his hand before he came up with any real plan. There was likely none that existed anyway short of leaving Japan and changing his name.

“Let’s go, Yuri!” she sang out far too chipper for her insidious plot.

He tried to resist, but he was no match. His feet stumbled over the sidewalk in his death march. “Where are we going?” He could guess the answer but hoped he was wrong.

“You’re going to skating class.” He was not wrong.

“But, Minako! I don’t want to skate!”

“Sure you do. You just have something else stopping you, so I’m going to help.”

“Please don’t.”

She smiled and pulled him faster making it to the rink in record time.

Looking over the expanse of empty ice, his heart tore through his chest like shards of glass. “You can’t make me skate.”

“We’ll see about that.”

She dragged him to the bench and got his skates from the locker. He considered making a run for it, but the only thing worse than a determined Minako was a pissed off, determined Minako, and his chances didn’t look good if he tried. She shoved his feet into the skates and laced them up, yanking the laces the whole way.

“They’re too tight. It hurts.”

“Don’t like it, do it yourself.”

Debating his options, he sighed and untied the skates and did them up again and changed his soakers for his guards then folded his arms. Minako didn’t miss a beat and came around behind him to shove him straight off the bench.

He stumbled but managed to save himself from a faceplant. “Hey! I could have fallen!”

“Like that’s never happened before. Come on.” She pushed him to the door then picked up each of his feet to remove the guards and picked him up, putting him onto the ice. When he didn’t move, she shoved his back again sending him out into the rink.

He stood motionless where he had stopped after the energy from Minako’s shove ran out. She couldn’t reach him out here. If he just stayed still, she’d eventually have to give up. He turned around and crossed his arms to face her.

She stared down his challenging glare then turned to his coach. “Kumiko, got a pair of skates I can borrow?”

His coach grinned and pointed the way. He stood defiantly until she came back and dragged him easily around the ice. Well, the dragging part was easy. The skating part not so much. She fell over and over and as much as Yuri tried to hold her up, he was just too small, and she’d end up dragging him down with her, refusing to let go.

They sat tangled up in a pile while he wailed, “Minako! Please stop! It hurts.”

“You’re right. This does hurt. Geez, I never knew skating was so painful. At least the ground doesn’t slip out from under you when you’re dancing. You sure are a tough kid. Come on. Get up.” She managed to make her way out from under him and pulled on his hand, dragging him back to his feet. “You sure are stubborn, aren’t you?” She shook her head. “Just like your mom. Don’t worry though. I have decades of experience here. You won’t beat me, kid. I’m not letting you quit.”  

The ice seemed to mock him with its indifference. It could fix it if it wanted to. It let them see each other before. Why not now? Why were those the only places it would work? “Please, Minako. Please let me leave. It hurts.”

“Did you get injured?” Her tone dropped to one of concern.

He shook his head. “It just hurts.” His chin wrinkled up as the tears started again.

She pursed her lips then shook her head with a wince. “Sorry, sweetie. You’re a tough kid, so I know you can make it through this. Whatever this is.” She dragged him around the ice for another lap while ignoring his sobs and the stares of everyone in the rink.

Three months later, she was still dragging him around the ice, standing with him in class and moving his body through the movements regardless of how little she actually achieved and how utterly stupid they looked. At least she had gotten better at skating, so she didn’t drag him down so much anymore. She was trying to lift and spin him through the most awkward toe loop ever to be done on ice when he realized that she would never stop. Minako didn’t know how to give up once she had decided something. And she had decided that he would skate.

“You put me down on the wrong edge. It’s supposed to be outside edge, not inside.”

“Don’t like it, do it yourself.” She cheerfully repeated her mantra while wiping the sweat off her face. He was too heavy for her to be lifting, but she did it anyway.

“Fine.”

“What?”

“I’ll do it myself. Let me go.”

“Really?” She gripped his hand tighter.

He nodded, and she released her grip. He shouldn’t have started with a jump as his first real move on the ice after months, but he set it up anyway and landed on his butt.

“I thought it was supposed to be the outside edge.” Minako grinned with her hands on her hips.

He growled as he got up and set it up to do it again. Three turn, step, and jump. He grunted with the effort of getting off the ice but his muscles had weakened, and he didn’t get enough height to even make a single. He crashed again and got right back up to try again. He clenched his jaw, irritated at absolutely everything and set his focus on making that stupid jump. His frustration that he couldn’t do what he had been able to do before carried him through the rest of the class and kept him going after each fall. He was still a wreck, but his stubbornness had switched its focus to landing the stupid jumps and getting his body back to doing what it used to be able to do.

Minako still showed up every day for the six months following that to escort him to class and watch to make sure he actually skated. While he still cringed at the sight of her a year later, a small part of him was grateful. Skating wasn’t anything like what it used to be. It was an act of persistence rather than the joy it had been, but she’d dragged a small fragment of hope from his shattered heart. If he ever were to see Viktor again, it would be on the ice. It was this tiny shard his heart had healed around, and it glinted from its raised setting as he stepped onto the quiet, dark ice lit only by a small lamp shining through a window. 

***

Two years after his world was ripped out from under him, a small bit of joy had rekindled in his skates with Yuko after class. She never changed, and he was grateful for that. She bounced over to him after they finished their skate one day carrying a tape and a gleam in her eyes.

“Yuri! You have to see this!”

He finished wiping down his skate and put his soakers on. “What is it?”

“Just come watch!” She grabbed his hand and pulled him out of the locker room and to the old tv their coach had set up so they could watch replays of their skating.

Nishigori sullenly made his way over and sat down with a manga at the end of the bench as if that was just where he’d felt like reading it. He had at least stopped picking on him after the incident with Ine, but not much else had changed between them. Yuko put the tape in and hit play. She stood just to the side of the screen with her fingernails between her teeth as a replay from last night’s news cut out, and a skater took the ice in a black costume with strobing crystals on one side above a half-skirt and a men’s suit on the other. The camera was zoomed out so he couldn’t see very well and couldn’t even tell if it was a boy or a girl, but a gleaming ponytail tugged on his memories.

The skater began his program, and slowly the camera drew his image closer until Yuri’s heart stopped.

“Russia’s Viktor Nikiforov!” Yuko cried out distantly. “Isn’t he amazing?”

He drew in a stunned breath and held it, afraid that the slightest change would break it. His mind took in every detail and every bit of information the announcers gave in case this ended too while his worthless heart did nothing but cry in relief.

“Do you remember that imaginary friend you used to have? He kinda looks like how you described him, doesn’t he?” she asked from the wrong side of a sheet of ice.

He had slipped through. They weren’t anywhere close, but they were finally on the same side. He found himself moving closer until his hand pressed against the screen and tears dripped from his chin. He knew how to reach him.

Viktor’s gold-medal performance ended, and the screen went black. His heart panicked at the sight, but he tried to stay calm remembering that it was a video and it could be replayed. “Can I borrow it?” he whispered.

“Yeah, go ahead. Are you okay, Yuri?”

“I’m… yeah. I’m fine.” He rewound the tape and played it again.

Viktor Nikiforov. He hadn’t even known his last name. They had talked endlessly but had missed the most basic things about each other. They just weren’t important at the time. They talked about skating and hopes and dreams and fears, and he’d spent two years wishing that they’d had just a single conversation about the names of their hometowns. There were too many Viktors in Russia and too many Yuris in Japan to have any hope of finding each other by searching anywhere but the ice. Now he had everything to go on, he knew his last name, his coach, where he trained, but Viktor was still nearly unreachable. He’d made it. The ice Viktor skated on was at World’s. He wasn’t anywhere close to reaching that.

“I’m not good enough. I won’t make it.” His words spoken in a daze burst his momentary hope. He was always struggling to keep up with Viktor and Viktor had to wait for him, but he was done waiting. He’d moved on ahead, and Yuri doubted that he even looked back anymore.

“What are you talking about? Won’t make it where?” Yuko’s voice was loud and clear again. He’d been dragged back to the side of the ice he was born on.

“I… I have to reach him, but I can’t.”

“You want to skate at World’s like Viktor?”

He shook his head. “I have to skate on the same ice as Viktor. He just decided it has to be at World’s. But I’m not good enough for that.”

“You could be.” Nishigori flipped to the next page in his manga without looking up.

“Huh?” Yuri and Yuko both turned to stare at him with open mouths.

“Ask Ine-”

“I’m not asking him anything,” Yuri growled. “You ask him whatever you want. He’s your friend.”

“He’s not my friend. I haven’t talked to him in years. Those guys are losers. But I was going to say ask Ine if he thinks you’re crazy enough to pull off something like that. Not many kids are tough enough to take on four bigger kids at once.” He smiled as he flipped the page. “You want to skate with that guy?”

Yuri nodded.

“Then do it.”   

“Nishigori.” Yuko stared at him wide-eyed making Nishigori blush and bury his face in the manga and a scowl.

Yuri took the tape out and thanked Yuko for letting him borrow it and raced home to make his own copy and watch it on endless repeat until his mom dragged him out for dinner and chores. When he finished, he came back and watched again until it was time to go back to the ice.

He skated around the empty rink for a few minutes then dropped to press his hands to the ice.

“Viktor, I found you.” His tears likely made up at least half of this ice, but he couldn’t stop more from coming as he pressed his kiss to the empty ice. “I knew you were real. I knew it even though no one else did. Not even you. I found you, but what do we do now? Why did it have to be there, Viktor? Don’t you know that I was never as good as you? Didn’t you know that if you reach as high as you can, I’d never be able to keep up? Do you even care if I can? Is that why you left? You got tired of waiting and holding yourself back for me? Please answer me, Viktor. I need to know. Do you still want me by your side?”

The ice sat silent, but Viktor’s words echoed in his memories. _‘Fight to stay with me, Yuri. Please? Promise me you won’t let anything keep us apart. I want you to keep skating by my side.’_ Did those words mean anything anymore? He left him. He wanted something else, and he didn’t want to keep skating with him. Even if he didn’t mean to break the ice, he was still planning to leave. Maybe… maybe Viktor just knew. He knew that the only way to find each other in a world so big was to stand above it all. If Viktor didn’t stand at the very top, he would have never seen him again.

“Viktor, do you still believe in me? Did you stand there believing I could join you, or do you not care if I can?”

_‘I want to see you on the podium with me at World’s someday.’_

The ice never changed. It didn’t tolerate mistakes. It never gave in a fall. But it always gave Yuri what he needed. If he trusted that everything he needed to know had already been said, Viktor was waiting for him at the top of the world.

He got up and wiped his face and skated toward him putting all of his trust in the ice to get him there.   


	8. Chapter 8

Yakov was particularly hellish in the months that followed his divorce from Liliya, and nearly all of it landed straight on Viktor. Liliya didn’t blame him, but Yakov did. He tried his best to keep working through it and keep his thoughts to himself as Liliya had taught him to do but everyone has a breaking point, and Yakov seemed to make it his life’s mission to smash everyone’s he met.

He’d been helping him coach the beginner’s class as that was the one thing he’d found that he actually enjoyed on this ice when he saw the telltale bulging veins across Yakov’s streaked red forehead as glared down at a little girl with bright red hair and blue eyes. Mila, six-years-old, had the kind of sweet tenaciousness and good humor Viktor was a sucker for. He came over just as her tears started up with Yakov’s rising voice.

“I said turn your toes out to push! Stop pushing off your toepick! Use the side of the blade! I’ve told you this a hundred times! Why can’t you get it right?!”

“Hey, stop yelling at her! She’s just a little girl.”

Yakov turned to snarl at him at least giving Mila a chance to hide behind Viktor. “Get out of here, Vitya. Don’t interfere with my job.”

“Well then do a better job, so I don’t have to!”

He fumed so hard; he thought an artery might burst. “You dare tell me that I don’t know how to do my job?! I’ve coached more gold medalists than you have years in your age! You think you can tell me how to coach?! You don’t know the first thing about anything let alone coaching!”

“Yeah. I can tell you how to coach. It starts with not being the most awful person on the planet! You think you’re such a great coach, but face it, we only get better in spite of you! It’s Liliya who really deserves the credit for those champions! Tell me, how many champions did you coach before you married her?”

Yakov glared at him, shaking with his anger that froze every child in fear on the ice.

“I know how many. None! That’s exactly how many you’ll be coaching too if you don’t learn how to be a decent coach and an even half-way decent person so she’ll work with you again! You’re not a coach at all. You just destroy everything you get your hands on! If we get rebuilt into something that looks good on the ice, that’s because of her!”

He skated toward him, nostrils flaring he was so livid. Viktor’s hands trembled but he tightened his fists, and his anger helped him hold his ground while Mila gripped his leg.

“You dare tell me about destroying everything?” His words seethed through his teeth, drops of spit flicking into his face. “You’re the little shit who destroyed my life.”

“No, you did that. Liliya couldn’t take any more of this, and I’m shocked she put up with you for as long as she did. You’re a destroyer, Yakov. I may be a kid still, but you know I’m right.” He picked up Mila and turned to the rest of the kids and put on his smile. “Who wants to get hot chocolate?”

“What do you think you’re doing?” Yakov growled.

Viktor kept his smile on and his voice sweet as he turned to him. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I just wanted to spend a nice day with my favorite little skaters.” He looked back at Mila. “So?”

“What about skating?” Mila asked, trying not to look at Yakov.

“We can always skate tomorrow. Today seems like a good day for hot chocolate, don’t you think?”

She nodded, and he beamed. “Great! And tomorrow I’ll bring my puppy in.”

“Really?” Her eyes got huge as she bounced in his arms.

“Yup. I think he’ll love skating.”

“I told you, you’re not allowed to bring that dog in here!” Yakov’s tantrum turned incredulous.

“Mila and I are going, who else is joining us?”

“Me!” The children all chorused, clamoring around him.

“Great! Let’s check with your parents, and we’ll head out! Go get your skates off,” he sang out to the now excited children.

***

A bag from the café next to the rink hung in his hand as he came in the house and he had to quickly jerk it out of Makka’s reach when he came running up to greet him.

“Makka! I missed you.” He bent down for a kiss and some scratches then Makka followed at his heels as he stopped on his way to the reading room to grab two plates and some forks. He came in quietly where Liliya was reading and put the bag on the table. She eyed him suspiciously as he pulled out two pieces of Napoleon cake, her favorite, and handed one to her.

“What’s this? Why are you here? Aren’t you supposed to be skating?”

“I’ll go back at six.” He settled onto the couch and picked up his book and let Makka get cozy on him then took a bite of cake. “Soo good. Don’t yell at me, but this is my second piece. I took the kids to the café.”

“Why?” Her suspicion deepened as she still held the plate exactly where he’d handed it to her.

He smiled and took another bite. “Yakov was being a terrible coach, so I took his students away.”

“You did what?”

He flipped his hair and winked at her.

She gave a light chuckle as her eyes widened. “All of them?”

“Yep. Including me. I called the rest of them too and got them all to agree to go to the café instead during their class time and sit by the window so Yakov would see them when he left.” He took another bite and then scooched Makka aside so he could pour some tea for them. Handing Liliya her cup, he took a sip from his own to clear his mouth. “Oh, and I promised the kids I’d bring Makka tomorrow.”

“You didn’t.”

“I did.”

“What did he say?”

“I dunno. Some stuff.” He shrugged and scratched Makka’s ear who was back on his lap. “He was angry. The usual.” 

“What did he say, Vitya?”

“Um, said that I didn’t know anything about coaching and said I destroyed his life. I said he was the destroyer and the only reason people think he’s a good coach is because of you.”

“He said you destroyed his life?” Her eyebrows lifted.

“Yeah, I always knew he blamed me. At least he finally said it.”

“You didn’t you know.”

He nodded. “Yeah. I know.”

“Did you lose your temper?”

He nodded. “Sorry. I tried, but he made Mila cry. I got ahold of it halfway through. That’s when I came up with the idea to get the kids out of there.”

“Were there witnesses?”

“The kids. A few parents and grandparents, but I think they were too far away to hear.”

“You have to be careful, Vitya. You can’t get away with that no matter how justified it is.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I’ll try harder.”

She nodded then took a bite of cake and smiled. “Are you really going to bring the dog?”

“Makka’s going to love skating, aren’t you, boy?” He cooed to him and ruffled his fur. “I think you’re going to love it so much you’re going to come with me every day from now on.”

***

Viktor squirmed in the hard airport seat in between Yakov and Liliya. The air was so dense with the tension between them, he blamed the several hours delay on the pilots not being able to see through the thick of it. Of course, the fact that it was Aeroflot that would be flying them to Bulgaria was reason enough for the delay, but Viktor preferred his explanation. He had left Yakov stewing, refusing to come in to train with him despite his screaming phone calls and instead spent that time doing extra training with Liliya. The only skating he did for the two weeks leading up to World’s was on his own at six. Yakov was fuming quietly on his other side as was to be expected. Viktor knew he couldn’t keep his focus on a book right then as Liliya was doing, so he sketched instead. A fluffy brown dog leapt in the air to bite at plum blossoms falling on his page.

“Um, ex-excuse me, Viktor?”

Even though the voice was quiet, Viktor nearly jumped out of his seat. With his head down, his hair had fallen around his face, and he hadn’t noticed the girl’s approach. He clutched the notebook to his chest and put on his best smile for the girl, about his age, who now looked terrified. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you, beautiful.”

“No, no! I scared you! I’m so sorry!”

“No, you were just helping me practice my jumps.” He flipped his hair and winked. “Thank you so much for your assistance.”

She giggled nervously. “Um- I’m a huge fan of yours.”

“Really?” He drew in a breath and made sure his eyes watered just a bit. “I’m so honored. Thank you.” He nudged Liliya’s arm. “See, Liliya? Didn’t I say I have the most beautiful fans in the world? This girl right here is exhibit A, B, and C.”

He caught the twitch of Lilya’s mouth that was her smile as she nodded and flipped another page. 

She blushed hard. “Tha-thank you. Are you on your way to World’s?”

“Yes, I am. Did you come out to cheer me on?”

“No, I just got lucky that you were here. But I'll definitely be cheering for you!”

“No, I’m the lucky one.” He put his finger to his lips as he thought. “I wonder, am I lucky enough to get a good luck kiss from you?”

She made a cracking little squeak as her eyes widened. He leaned forward and turned his cheek toward her with a hopeful smile. She planted a quick kiss and pulled back into nervous giggles.

“Thank you!” He beamed at her then took her hand and lifted it for a peck on the back of it with a wink. “I’ll make sure to do my best for you at World’s to show you how grateful I am for your support.”

She nodded then glanced at his notebook. “What- what were you drawing?”

His eyes flicked to the notebook still held tight to his chest. “Oh, I was just doing some homework. I can’t slack off on my studies just because my feet happen to like the ice.”

“Oh. It looked like you were drawing.”

“Ah, yeah sometimes it helps me figure out the answer when I draw little figures for those tricky math problems to have a picture of what’s happening.”

“Oh, I see. That’s a good idea. I think I’ll try that. Um, can I please have your autograph?”

“You want my autograph?” He looked pleasantly surprised. “Of course! What’s your name?”

“Tatiyana.”

“Tatiyana…” He caressed the name softly on his tongue. “A beautiful name to go with a beautiful girl.” He gave a bashful smile as he took the pen and magazine likely freshly purchased from one of the newsstand racks in the airport featuring him on the cover surrounded by bubbly text and throbbing colors. He signed his name and handed it back with an accidental graze of her fingertips. “Thank you so much again for your support, Tatiyana. I hope I make you proud this weekend.”

“I’m sure you’ll be amazing. Thank you so much!” She waved and ran back to her family waving the magazine in the air.

“Shameless,” Yakov grunted.

“Beautiful,” Liliya said at the same time then glared at Yakov. “You shut your mouth. You know the rules. No comments from you on my side.”

Yakov grunted again.

“It could be better though. You let her surprise you and that started the interaction off on a rocky footing. You smoothed it out well, but it shouldn’t have happened.”

“I know. I couldn’t see her. This hair’s a liability. I think it’s time to cut it.”

Liliya eyed him carefully. “Wait at least one more year. You haven’t fully matured yet. It’s still an asset for now. Just be more careful.”

“I will.”

“And be very careful about lying directly. What if she’d seen what you were drawing and she caught you in that lie?”  

“I know. I just… this is for me, not them. If I tell them they’ll want to see it.”

She nodded. “I understand but be more careful. Don’t let yourself get put into a position where you have to lie outright. Protect yourself preemptively; don’t wait and scramble to cover yourself.”

“Well, if I’d seen her-”

“I know. Just keep it in mind. Remember, you can’t get away with mistakes.”

“Right.”

“And if you’re going to lie, make it a damn good one. That one was rather weak. A better one there would be to say you were sketching new skating moves to see what they’d look like. It’s closer to the truth and that way if they ask to see it you could apologize and deny them because you can’t let your ideas get leaked to the competition. And you should have gotten her name earlier and made sure you still remembered it for the autograph.”

“Yes, ma’am. Anything else?”

“I believe that’s all.”

Yakov glared at him from the corner of his eye and folded his arms deeper as Viktor went back to his drawing. He went over the rules again as he sketched, adding the new ones to the top of his list. _Always make them feel comfortable. Get the name early and don’t forget it. Don’t lie in a way that can be caught. Never give them anything. Be passionate but not controversial. Don’t let them linger…_

***

Viktor shook his hands out in the bathroom stall hoping to throw the nervous energy out of his body. You are a dream. Don’t wake them up. That one little line had explained so much of his life. He wasn’t a real person so that’s why he couldn’t get away with mistakes. Yuri wasn’t his dream; he was Yuri’s. It made so much more sense. No wonder he felt so lost when he shattered them. What do dreams do when the source wakes? This apparently. They float around flashing in and out of existence, waiting in the dark to be called upon to live again.

He blew a puff of air into his fists then shook them out one last time before he left for the ice. Joining Yakov at the side of the rink, he expected to get the standard lecture before he went out, but Yakov stood silent. He closed his eyes and felt the buzzing in his body that signaled his coming to life. He couldn’t always be perfect, but he could be perfect for a few minutes. That’s all he needed to do. Be perfect for a few minutes and hide the rest away and he could live. He stepped onto the ice and took his spot in the middle. _You are a dream. Don’t wake them up._

Keep their attention moving. First the lover and then the beloved, the seducer and the seduced. Male, female, it didn’t matter. He could be whatever they needed him to be. See him any way they choose as long as it looks like perfection to them. He could be any fantasy because he was nothing but a fantasy. He existed to lift their view of what’s possible. He could be something that expanded their lives, something essential to their souls, if he could just be who he was supposed to be.

His blade gripped the ice and tucked it beneath him claiming the power it offered to those with the prowess to command it. Don’t rush. Let them look just long enough at the beauty for a sigh but not long enough to study. A languid crunch of the ice buried itself beneath the movements choreographed to hide the effort of his launch under a layer of elegance. It was nothing for him, just one flowing motion into a blur twisting through the air and a burying of the half ton of force on landing into the supple muscles of his thigh while maintaining his balance on a single blade that was just a shaving off the wire of a tightrope walker.

_“Don’t stop the performance to tense your arms!” Liliya clapped her hands as though she were trying to clap the flaw right out of him._

_“But I have to. Getting off the ice takes my arms and my legs. I have to set up the jump. Every skater does it.”_

_Liliya narrowed her eyes. “Are you every skater?”_

_He dropped his head. “No, ma’am.”_

_She nodded. “Power means nothing without beauty. Find the strength to do it right. Again.”_

He choked on the beat of his heart rising through his throat trying to escape the inhumane demands. He held it in place and crammed more effort into it. Such a convenient hiding place. Only he felt the desperate way it throbbed.

_Will you ever dream of me again, Yuri? Life was so much better when I was only your dream._

He claimed his last jump from the ice and twisted into his final spin. Painting his face with gentle grace, he found the single point in the center of the tornado that was just tame enough to withstand and stretched his body into the whirlwind giving up the safety of a rigid hold to show how even the power of a tornado was a trivial force when compared to him.

He wanted nothing more than to collapse on the ice as the audience roared, but the performance wasn’t over yet. He smiled and raised both hands to wave then skated around collecting the gifts they tossed onto the ice, pausing to admire each one he held so the giver could assure themselves that their gift was his favorite. There were too many for him to take each one, so he swept his arm over the rest and clutched his hands to his chest as he bowed and mouthed an earnest thank you. He blew kisses as he stepped off the ice and found the spot without cameras to duck behind the wall and dab his face with the towel Liliya slipped to him being careful not to remove the makeup that hid the deep redness his alabaster skin was prone to letting slip through as glaring evidence of his effort. It was his only time to let his body heave as chaotically as it wished to recover his air, but he made sure to take only a moment and came up brushing his pants as though he had just stooped to brush the snow from them. With a steady rhythm of deep breaths, he kept his lungs in check and headed to the kiss and cry.

“How did I do?” He asked Liliya who was still dabbing her tears.

She squeezed his hand and smiled up at him. “You were the most exquisite of dreams. You were everything I knew you could be. You were perfect, my child.”

He ducked down to kiss her cheek. “Thank you. For everything.” He glanced at Yakov. “For coming out for me.”

“I don’t break my promises.”

He sat down between them on the bench and braced himself for Yakov’s lecture, but he just sat with his arms still folded as the scores came in. He received the highest score in the junior division’s history and firmly clinched gold. For a moment they were united in their elation that their hard work meant something. He embraced Liliya as her tears dripped softly into her handkerchief again and left an arm around her as he turned to accept Yakov’s hug.

Yakov thumped his back. “Well done, Vitya. It looks like you were right. You do only get better in spite of me.” The gruffness of his voice grated at the emotion twisted inside it.

He shook his head, chafing his tender cheek on the coarse stubble on Yakov’s face that was always present no matter how recently he shaved. “I didn’t mean your coaching is worthless. It’s not. You are the best coach in Russia. You just make us get through fifty layers of grumpy old man to reach the gold in there.”

He gave his standard grunt though it sounded almost like a sniff to hold back something he dared not release. “I am a grumpy old man.” His voice softened just a touch. “But I can try for maybe forty layers.”

“Ten.”

“Thirty.”

“Fifteen.”

“I’m dropping more than you’re raising.”

“You’re forgetting who brings in the cash.”

His grunt had the tinge of a laugh. “Fine. Twenty. Final offer.”

“Fine as long as you drop it to five for the kids.”

“You’re all kids!”

“Kids under ten.”

“Only if you pick up the extra fifteen.”

“Deal, but if you’re going to give me that much extra hell, expect me to give it right back.” He kissed his indignant, sandpaper cheek. “Thank you, Coach Yakov.”

“Viktor! Viktor! Over here!” The mob had descended once again. “Your fans want to know, what’s your favorite flower?”

Plum blossoms. “Roses.” He put his finger to his lips in thought. _If you can give them a detail that’s harmless, do it. There’s nothing worse than an act that feels like an act._ “Blue roses,” he added with a smile. He didn’t know why exactly he hid the truth on that answer, there was nothing harmful about a plum blossom, but it came from the human part of him, and that was something he should never be. 


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It has come to my attention that it is very easy to miss chapters with me updating two chapters at a time. I'm so sorry for the confusion! If you've been subscribed and saw two emails and overlooked or thought the second was a glitch in the system, it's not. They are updating two at a time, alternating pov between Yuri and Viktor. If you've read any version that doesn't have that alternating pattern, you might be missing a chunk of the story. I'm going to post this then do final edits and post Viktor's chapter a bit later so hopefully, this one has some time to get noticed, but the second chapter in the update should still be coming out today. Thank you for reading and I'm sorry again for the confusion!

Yuri devoured anything and everything having to do with Viktor Nikiforov. Every word spoken about him from another’s mouth, every image of his he held in his hands was proof that the boy in the ice, his coach, his best friend was real and waiting for him to reach him. But the more he collected, the more a restless truth seeped through the cracks in between the collage of images that was the Viktor Nikiforov plastered on his walls. He collected more to cover the spaces, but the glaring shadows condensed as the spaces narrowed.

Viktor Nikiforov on his walls had a smile that crinkled adorably beneath his breathtaking blue eyes and glinted amongst features delicately poised between male and female, adult and child, untouchable and intimate. He spoke eloquently in three languages, and his charm dazzled in all the rest. He was beloved almost by mandate. A single bad word about him and the speaker was dismissed as jealous. And his skating, the thing that held him so believably high, was utter perfection. And it was far too perfect to be the empty kind of perfection. His performances resonated so deeply, he turned millions of new fans onto the sport to gape at this new spectacle of human achievement and artistry. It was in these perfect performances that he spotted the first cracks.

His Viktor did this thing, a trill of his hand before he jumped. Viktor Nikiforov didn’t. He didn’t have a heart-shaped smile that took over half of his face. He didn’t shake the hair from his eyes like a dog who just had a butterfly land on its nose. He never had a brutal truth on his tongue that was maddening in the way its accuracy stripped even the hope of defense. He never pouted with an adorable puff of his cheeks. He never heaved desperately after a performance like he’d given his very life over to it without a care for if it would leave any remaining for him or not. And when asked what his favorite flower was, he didn’t say plum blossoms as his Viktor always insisted it was. It all added up to one simple truth. Viktor Nikiforov wasn’t his Viktor.

In his wilder fantasies, aliens had taken him over. Carved him out and left only his shell with whatever sticky goo they used filling the place where his soul used to be. That one was just far too ridiculous to believe. Besides, this Viktor clearly had a soul. Maybe he had become so good he had become a patron saint of figure skating and thus left his earthly body behind in exchange for one from the heavens in which case some differences should be expected. That one was more believable than alien goo. His favorite theory was that the god of perfection had chosen him as the vessel through which he finally announced his existence and Viktor had accepted graciously, stepping aside to allow him room. With every new poster put up, Viktor Nikiforov became more removed from the Viktor he knew. He put them up faster trying to catch just one tiny proof that his Viktor still lived. With each passing year, another truth began to ooze out from those deep crevices. Maybe the god of perfection wasn’t as benevolent as Yuri had first assumed. He felt time thawing the ice below his blades with its surging heat.  

***

“C’mon, Vikchan! We have to hurry!” Yuri called out to the little brown dog that was a reminder of his one hope that his Viktor still lived. Viktor had never mentioned having any pets when he knew him, but Makkachin felt like Viktor. And the way he spoke about him in interviews, with not just patience for the way the dog hung all over him but like that was his favorite thing about him, reminded him of how his Viktor had always found it adorable when he pounced on his reflection whenever he was excited. “Come on! Yuko’s waiting for us!” He giggled as his excitement rippled in his chest. He was leaving for the Grand Prix tomorrow, and Viktor would, of course, be there. He wouldn’t quite be on the same ice as he was still in the junior division, but he was sure it was close enough.

Having Yuko as Viktor’s fan too felt a lot like that first day he’d met him, and he didn’t mind the Groundhog Day effect at all as they skated his routines together. He would gladly relive any of those early days when magic felt like the strongest substance on earth and Viktor was just his sweet, sometimes maddening, friend who sparkled on the ice. Yuko waved from the ice as he came in and rushed to the locker room to throw on his skates. Vikchan yipped as Yuri stepped onto the ice and left him to wait at the door.

“Sorry, buddy.” He slipped him a treat from his pocket and patted his head.

“So, what are we starting with today? You kicking my butt or fun?” Yuko beamed her sweet smile at him.

He thought for a moment then grinned. “It’s always more fun after I’ve kicked your butt. Let’s work first.”

“Jerk.” She grinned and shoved him while Nishigori scowled from the opposite end of the rink. She sighed. “God, I remember when you were just this sweet little boy falling all over the ice. Now, look at you.” She reached up to pat the top of his head. “You’re so cool, Yuri. Going to the Grand Prix and skating on the same ice as Viktor. And you went and got hot while you were busy doing all that training too.”

“Yuko!” A shoddy red crept over his face erasing any believability of her previous claim of his coolness.

“What?” She grinned and nudged his ribs. “You did. I bet Viktor takes one look at you on the ice and falls head over heels in love.” She sighed and clutched her hands to her chest as she furled into a twizzle.

The red collapsed down his ears and neck. “I thought we were working first.”

“What will you name your children?” She came out of the twizzle and slid into a lunge with her raised arms framing her mocking face.

He shook his head and started some crossovers. “What are you going to name yours and Nishigori’s children, huh?”

Falling out of the lunge, she landed on her butt spinning around for a full circle with her legs splayed before she came to a stop. “Huh? Where did that come from?” She glanced back to make sure he was still too far away to overhear their conversation. “Why would you say Nishigori of all people? Do- do you know something?”

He shrugged with a coy smile. “I wouldn’t say I know it, but… he looks at you… the way- the way I look at Viktor.” His smile dropped as he skated over and offered his hand. “He always has.”

Her cheeks dusted with pink as she stared at his hand then she shook her head and slapped her hands on the ice and got up on her own. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m never getting married or having kids. I’ve gotta reclaim my crown as queen of this place from you.” She stuck her tongue out.

“Hey!” He chased after her as she squealed like a little girl caught with an illicit cookie.

This was precisely the reason his coach had decided to have Yuko be his coach for the week leading up to the Grand Prix. She knew they’d never get any real work done, but Yuko never failed to get him out of his head, and that was really what he needed- time on the ice with nothing but a childish joy.

His initial flutters of anxiousness at his first competitions had snowballed after he failed to do as well in them as he did in practice with that nervous energy pilfering his confidence and the steadiness he relied on to keep his balance. His fellow skaters often said that they counted on the buzz of adrenaline to enhance their performance or that they knew they had to just get through the first few measures of their song before the ice would smooth under their skates and their performance could start in earnest. Yuri had no such luck. The only thing he could count on was that he couldn’t count on anything. He could find a way to skate even to a bad song as long as he knew what to expect. Instead, his mind played like a skipping song; the lyrical sway ruptured when he least suspected it by piercing static.

Waiting now to skate on Viktor’s ice at the Grand Prix, he found himself falling in and out of the beginning of a dream. What would he say? He’d grown a lot since he’d last seen him, they both had, so maybe he’d do a double take not quite believing that he was actually there, that he’d kept his promise to reach him on the same ice, that he’d been right all along. His hopes soared above the ice until his mind gave out again. Then that sickening drop, the feeling when drifting on the edges of a dream and your body can’t make sense of where it is and plunges straight off a cliff in its confusion where only terror saves you from the splat at the bottom by waking you with a jerk and a spinning heart. His mind was relentless in forcing him to live in this roiling dream oscillating between hopes and nightmares as he skated through it all trying to find any sort of balance. He couldn’t mess this up. What if Viktor was watching? He couldn’t let their first meeting be tainted with his failure. He scraped at the edges of his mind to find any place to hold while pleading with it to stop and just let him skate.

Third. Not bad. He’d hoped for better, but third was respectable, and he beamed just a little that he had managed to snag a medal while placed under the worst torture his mind had come up with for him yet. Now he just had to find Viktor. He’d seen him over the past few days of competition, but only from a distance, and he hadn’t had the chance to cross the barriers that still held them apart. He was determined now. He couldn’t let this meeting slip away when he was so close. He had hoped that Viktor would recognize him and come rushing over as it was far easier for Viktor to get to him than it was for him to get to Viktor, but it was understandable that his mind was focused on the competition. He’d gotten gold obviously, and now he was greeting his fans. This was his chance. He just had to get through the mob.

As he got closer, he was struck by just how different he’d become in the last seven years. The fairy-like boy he knew had vanished with a snip of his hair, and now a man with the heft of fine marble stood in his place. He’d never been intimidated by his Viktor, but as he was smashed closer in the mob of bodies, he swallowed hard against the cracked mud coating his mouth. This wasn’t how this was supposed to go. He was supposed to meet him alone on the ice, not packed in a throng of stuffy teenage hormones. That didn’t matter. He wouldn’t let Viktor down over something so trivial. He swallowed again and shoved his way through.

“Viktor!” He put his hands around his mouth to carry his voice over the others all screaming the same. “Viktor!” he called louder, and Viktor froze.

He finished signing a girl’s poster and turned to him, a flash of searching on his face before it cracked into the smile Yuri had seen on TV. “Hi, what’s your name?” He held his hand out, and Yuri stared at it, his head tilted in confusion until Viktor's hand dropped back to his side.

It’s been a long time. They weren’t little boys anymore. It was too much to expect him to recognize him after time had changed them both. He squeezed his eyes shut while he swallowed the disappointment. “Yuri.” He forced his eyes back open to see his reaction. “I’m Yuri.”

“Yuri…” He held his name in his mouth like he was tasting the shape of it as it rolled over his tongue. “What a beautiful name.” Viktor fixed his eyes on him, the one part Yuri was certain would light up when he saw him exactly like he had every night for four years; his eyes remained frozen as they were when Yuri first called his name.

“Viktor… I… I’m here. I skated on the same ice as you.”

“You did?” A shadow of Viktor’s real gleam flashed in his eyes beneath the sparkle he filled them with. “That’s wonderful! You must be a fabulous skater to have skated at the Grand Prix. You must have worked so hard to get here. I’m so proud of you, Yuri.”

The clash between familiar words and an unfamiliar smile brought tears picking at Yuri’s eyes.

“Thank you so much for coming over to see me. Hold on one second.” He turned to his coach behind him and whispered in his ear who then slowly handed him a spiral-bound notebook while scowling deeper. Viktor flipped it open and held it and a pen up with a smile. “Can I get your autograph, please? I’ll trade you for mine.” Viktor Nikiforov’s smile brightened.

And suddenly, just like that, they had never spoken. He didn’t know him. The four years they spent at each other’s sides, encouraging, listening, supporting, laughing, were gone. Stolen from him just as Viktor’s image in the ice was. It was Viktor before him. There was no doubt about that. Viktor could never be imitated. But his Viktor would never have that look in his eyes when looking at him, the plastered look of a friendly shopkeeper offering to help him find what he needed from his store shelves. Their shared memories, tear-salted, hope-sweetened, laughter-leavened, that Yuri was certain were safely preserved, spoiled and grew mold before his eyes. What meaning could they have living in him alone?

The crowd jockeyed for position around him, elbowing his ribs and smothering his lungs with their stale heat as he stared at the glittering fantasy before him waiting with his attention fixed on him, wiped clean of anything real. Viktor was real. Yuri never once doubted that. The only explanation for the sight in front of him was that his Viktor was gone. He stared at the mocking sheet of blank paper that Viktor held next to the smile that he poured over him like sugar on a toothache then turned around and fought his way through the crowd to get away before he broke down. He didn’t make it far.

***

Yuri hoped that facing a second trip through hell would be easier than the first because at least he knew the terrain, but it only took a day to learn that it’s so much worse. The first had shock to numb the pain and just a blind search of the way through to the first tastes of cool relief. In the second, he had the anticipation of pain. The flinch before every lick knowing just how bad it will hurt. He had the pain itself of course, and he had yardsticks with which to measure. He measured days. He measured degrees of pain, inches of it. He measured the hours he stared in horror at just how long that wincing path is. He measured because that meant time was passing and drawing him closer to the end, but it also defined every edge of the jagged glass, where it glinted and where the shadows fell. And he now knew that there is no escaping a single cut. He knew Minako would never allow him to quit skating, and he knew that he would live.

***

Nishigori was waiting for him as he got out of class. Plum blossoms were on the trees yet again, heaving the snow onto their shoulders and wiggling their stance to get into position to cast it from the land. He tensed and scanned the area.

“Relax, it’s just me.” Nishigori's scowl wasn’t very reassuring, but at least it was familiar.

He frowned but started walking again. “Why are you here?”

“I- I wanted to ask you something.” He kicked a loose pebble on the sidewalk.

He waited for him to continue but apparently he needed some prompting. “Go ahead.”

“Do you like Yuko?” he snapped.

“Why wouldn’t I? We’re friends, and she’s really nice. Who wouldn’t like her?”

“That’s not what I mean. I mean… do you want to date her?”

“What? No. Why would you think that I do?”

“You two are always together, and you’re always laughing and having a good time.”

“Yeah, we’re friends. That’s what friends generally do.”

“So, if- if I confessed to her, I wouldn’t have to fight you for her?”

“Nishigori… you might have a lot of competition for her, but you won’t have any from me. I don’t like girls like that.”

“Really?”

“I- I kinda thought you already knew that.”

“Hell, why would I know that? I mean, I know you’ve got a thing for that Viktor guy, but the whole world does, so that doesn’t really count.”

He winced as the piece shaped like a jagged L stuck between his ribs.

“You mean… you weren’t trying to steal her from me?”

“Steal her?” His face wrinkled. “I was six. I just wanted to skate with the nice girl who didn’t push me around and call me names.”

“Oh. I kinda always felt like you had stolen her from me. She was always with me before you showed up.”

“I’m sorry. I never meant to take her from you. I would have been happy if we were all friends.”

“No, I’m sorry. I was the one who was a jerk. And Ine and all them… I never told them to do any of that. I’m sorry I didn’t stop them. I still feel bad about that.”

“It’s fine. Don’t worry about me. Go confess to Yuko before someone else does.” He smiled and shoved his shoulder, but Nishigori stayed put and just returned the awkward smile.

“She told me you were thinking of withdrawing from World’s.”

He pressed his lips and looked back ahead. “Yeah.”

“Why are you quitting when you’re so close?”

“What do you mean?”

“Viktor. You were competing to reach him. You’re already at the same competitions. Just a little bit more and you’ll be in the same division as him. Don’t stop when you’re that close.”

“But I did reach him. We skated on the same ice.”

“One little moment of being close to him is enough for you?”

“Well, no, but it’s not-”

“If it’s not enough, why are you quitting? That’s just stupid to work that hard and quit now. Go get what you want. You might have to wait a few years cause he might feel weird about dating a seventeen-year-old but that shouldn’t matter soon enough. Keep skating and go get him if that’s what you want.”

“It’s not like that. I just…”

“No?” He peered over with a skeptical laugh. “I think it’s exactly like that.” He spotted Yuko headed into the rink just ahead of them, and his step hesitated before he pressed on. “Go get Viktor. At least you’ve got a better chance than ninety-nine percent of those other idiots drooling over him.”

“Why would you say that?” He shook his head.

“Hey, if it’s not Yuko that you want, then I’m behind you.” He shoved his back to drive his point because subtle was not something Nishigori had ever known and grinned. He ran off to meet Yuko and turned around, jogging backwards to call back. “Go get your man! The heart’s not done ‘til it’s dead!” He waved and turned back around.

Maybe Nishigori was right. Maybe he was quitting too early. He cringed. How much pain was he supposed to take to keep his promise? Viktor accidentally breaking them was one thing, but not even knowing who he was… Could he keep fighting through a pain like that? He was outmatched. Viktor had the world, and he wasn’t even worth a single memory. He was prepared to fight on the ice. He was prepared to fight himself. What he could never have prepared for was having to fight Viktor. Could he endure the pain of that fight? Was it even worth it if he never meant as much to Viktor as Viktor did to him?

Hearts are stupid. They don’t listen to reason. They don’t learn from their mistakes. They don’t know how to stay down and quiet when they have no chance of winning the fight. They don’t weigh pros and cons and make informed decisions. They point like a two-year-old and say, “Want!” and tantrum until they either get it or find something shinier that they want instead. Yuri’s heart was the stupidest of them all because his would never be distracted, and it had absolutely no sense of self-preservation even though it was weaker than most. Some people had minds strong enough to keep their stupid hearts in check, but wouldn’t it be his luck that his mind was even weaker than his heart. What a stupid, broken thing he was forced to follow.

He raced ahead to the ice and shook his head as his heart cried out at the very pain it had driven him towards. He couldn’t bother with that right now. He had an even bigger idiot to fight.  Somehow, he had to make that idiot see what was real and what was the illusion and that started with standing on the podium with him. He had to make him see the Yuri who had promised to fight anything to stay at his side. He had to see him on the exact same ice. Close enough wasn't enough. Maybe if he saw that… A part of him must remember.

What a stupid, worthless heart. It really doesn’t learn anything, does it?


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It has come to my attention that it is very easy to miss chapters with me updating two chapters at a time. I'm so sorry for the confusion! If you've been subscribed and saw two emails and overlooked or thought the second was a glitch in the system, it's not. They are updating two at a time, alternating pov between Yuri and Viktor. If you've read any version that doesn't have that alternating pattern, you might be missing a chunk of the story. Thank you for reading, and I'm sorry again for the confusion!

Viktor sat in the quiet locker room, another gold medal around his neck, the simple curl of a plum blossom petal soothing his restless hand with a familiar swoop of his pencil. Joining the hundreds of others he had drawn, it rested on an otherwise empty sheet of ice.

It was almost plum blossom season again. Just a few more months. Everything was measured by the plum blossoms. When they were here, how long until they would be here again. There weren’t even many plum blossoms in Russia, and they were mistimed from the ones that bloomed in Japan, but he had managed to find a park that had some on display. His spirits would always lift as they were approaching and then a crash soon followed when it passed the same as any other season. He needed to stop this childish fantasy. It had gone on for far too long. His happiness wouldn’t suddenly blow in with a shower of pink and white petals. What had happened wasn’t real. It was impossible. No one has ever proven any sort of magic as being real so obviously he had just made the whole thing up. That was the answer with the fewest leaps and Occam was the trusted expert on such things; not him. Still, it was a sharp truth to grab when it had felt so real.

One of the petals went slightly off under his hand. He glared at it. He could erase it, but that would leave marks behind. He could layer more on top, and it wouldn’t be noticeable at all. It was just one of hundreds. It didn’t matter. Just a happy little accident. He scoffed. Bob Ross was an idiot. Accidents and mistakes are never happy. He tore the sheet out from the sketchbook and ripped it in half then stacked the pieces and ripped them in half again and repeated until he had a thick stack of ragged confetti. He tossed it in the trash then sat down and sighed as he started again. He really wanted to finish this drawing, but it was taking forever. Seven tries and it still wasn’t right. The rebalanced smell of graphite on fresh paper each taking equal weight renewed his hope. This time he’d get it right.

“Vitya, time to go.”

He looked up at Yakov, his mouth hanging open in surprise and his hand cramped from all of the petals it had formed. “Huh?”

“Meet the fans. Let’s go.”

“Oh, right.” He flipped the book shut and shoved it and the pencil into Yakov’s hands and shook out his own. “Right. Let’s do this.”

He didn’t have time for the full list, but he recited the major rules on the way to get his head right. Don’t let them get too close. Don’t let them linger. Keep their attention moving. Make sure they always feel good. Don’t give them anything, but don’t let it feel like an act…

The crowd swarmed around him, blinding voices calling his name over their general din. It made it hard to concentrate on the person in front of him, and he was always afraid of repeating himself too much in a deep crowd or altering himself too much from one person to the next. It was easier to find the right balance on the ice.

“Hello, beautiful. What’s your name?” He leaned into the girl in front of him so he could keep his words private to give himself some more flexibility and generate intimacy.

She stared at him with her mouth stunned. “Oh my god.”

He chuckled and leaned just a bit closer. “My goddess did you say? How very fitting.”

She squealed and slapped her hand over her mouth. “Oh my god! No, it’s um, it’s- it’s Jessica. Wow, you’re even more gorgeous in person.”

“Thank you.” His hand went to his chest before he started the autograph. “You’re so kind. I’m so blessed to have-

“Viktor!” An accented version of his name struck his focus.

Stop it. It’s not him. He widened his smile and got his hand moving again. Shit. His lapse made his signature jump roughly. He wanted to take it back and do it again, but it just wasn’t possible. His insides chafed against the flaw. “- to have your support.” Shit. He messed it all up. He squeezed her hand and focused on her eyes as if he were memorizing her face as he handed the poster back and hoped that’d be enough to cover it.

He had to get some distance from his failure, so he jumped a few people, and his eyes lit on the young man who must have been the one to call his name so distractingly. Japanese of course, but not him. He was too hard, and his Yuri didn’t have glasses. That Japanese accent was always trouble for him. It threw him off his game too much. Don’t mess this one up. He put on the most dazzling smile he was capable of and locked down his emotions. It made for a stiffer performance, but it was a better option than utter failure. “Hi, what’s your name?” He held his hand out, but the boy just stared at it. What was going on? How was he already messing this up? He locked his smile into place so it wouldn’t waver as he brought his hand back to his side. Shit. All the Japanese people he’d met shook hands, but maybe he should have bowed instead, but then that might look like he was making assumptions based on his race, and what was he doing wrong? Why did he have such a hurt look on his face? Come on, make it right!

The boy squeezed his eyes shut like he was in agony. “Yuri.” His eyes flicked open and fixed on him leaving him nowhere to hide even though the glare from his glasses obscured most of his gaze. “I’m Yuri.”

“Yuri…” Of course, it had to be that name. He wasn’t the first Yuri he’d met like this, but the name still cut when it wasn’t the right one. “What a beautiful name.” It was too much. Too close. His mind went blank except to persist on the path he was on. Follow the rules.

“Viktor… I… I’m here. I skated on the same ice as you.”

Finally, something he could work with. He just had to keep the panic from his voice. Don’t rush. Keep the timing. “You did? That’s wonderful! You must be a fabulous skater to have skated at the Grand Prix! You must have worked so hard to get here. I’m so proud of you, Yuri.”

His focus and composure wavered below his frozen surface as tears started to pool in the boy’s eyes. As much as he’d like to tell himself that they were tears of joy or even just being overwhelmed, he knew they weren’t. 

Fuck! What was he doing wrong? He wanted to grab him and beg him to tell him what he was doing wrong, but he chased away such ridiculous ideas and clung harder to the rules. Change the focus. “Thank you so much for coming over to see me.” Give him something. He’d give him anything if he could fix this awful meeting. “Hold on one second.”

He turned to Yakov who was standing behind him and put his hand on his shoulder to lean in towards his ear. “Give me my sketchbook.”

“There’s people. You never bring it out with people. What are you doing?”

“Just give it to me!” He hoped his face didn’t show the desperation his voice just had. He grabbed it from his hand and flipped it to a blank page before he fully opened it. Locking his smile back into place, he held the book and a pen up. “Can I get your autograph, please? I’ll trade you for mine.” Come on, please, please let this work.

The boy just stared at him, the pain on his face searching his for relief. Deciding that what he was looking for didn’t exist in him, the boy turned around and shoved his way back through the crowd. In the last glimpse before he disappeared, he watched the boy’s heart shatter. Viktor’s eyes fixed on the spot he had vanished from.

Yakov grabbed his elbow. “Vitya, what are you doing? Next person.”

“Right.” He shoved the sketchbook back at Yakov and tried to relax his throat and bury the trembling deeper. “Right. Next person.” He turned to another. “Hi! Thank you so much for coming to see me. What’s your name, sweetie?”

***

Back on the plane to home, he tore out another sheet of paper while Yakov snored next to him. Why can’t he get it right? It’s just a little curl of his pencil. It’s not that hard. The paper tore into halves, and he stuck them in the plastic bag sitting on the tray that was starting to get full.

“May I take your trash for you, sir?” the stewardess asked.

“Oh, no thank you. I don’t want to waste the bag since it’s not quite full yet.” He beamed at her. “I appreciate the offer though.” Right. Like he’d let some stranger cart off evidence of his failures to be sold to the highest bidder. He set his hand back to the task. He can get it right. He just has to try a little harder.

***

He pulled his phone from his pocket as he got into the cab from the airport and hit the top conversation to send a text to Liliya. “I’m coming over in twenty minutes. Don’t be doing horrible things when I get in.”

His phone chirped a second later. “For heaven’s sake, Vitya, you say that as if you’ve ever seen such a thing.”

“Don’t tell me you and Antonio were just playing chess.”

“We were and I’ll swear that ‘til the day I die.”

“You must tell me what rules you were playing with. I’ve never heard a game sound so tantalizing before.”

“Oh, stop it, Vitya. Just get over here. Makka missed you.”

“Just Makka? (^_-)” He slipped his phone back in his pocket knowing Liliya would never give him the satisfaction of admitting such a thing.

He handed his fare to the cabbie then hauled his suitcase to the door and braced himself for the attack. “Makka!” He flung his arms open and caught the projectile bundle of curls whining and slobbering his face. “I missed you, boy.” He buried his face in the soft, brown fluff and held him tighter. “I really missed you.” He gave him another kiss then set him down. He kicked off his shoes then went to find Liliya in the reading room with Makka nudging his hand any time the pets slowed down.

She had sheets of choreography splayed over the table and a fire burning across the snow-lined river. “Vitya.” A smile filled in the break of her stern expressions. “How did it go?”

He sat down and shook his head. “Not good.”

“Really?” The space between her eyes creased a little further as she put down her pencil and sat back. “What happened?”

“I messed up. There was a boy. Japanese. He threw me off.”

“I thought you’d worked on that.”

“I did. I thought it was fine, but he got inside my head, and I messed up one meeting with a girl, and then I went to him and… It was bad.”

“How bad?”

“He… he didn’t respond to anything I said, and he looked so… hurt. He didn’t want an autograph. He just… walked away.”

“He walked away? He came up to meet you and then just walked away without talking to you or getting an autograph?”

“Yeah, well he said he skated at the Grand Prix with me, probably in juniors, and I praised him and told him that I was proud of his hard work and he just…” He laid down and put his head in Liliya’s lap.

After a moment she put a hesitant hand to his head and started combing her fingers through his hair. “It’s okay. You can’t win everyone. You’ve done more than enough to drown out those few voices who won’t support you no matter what you do.”

He shook his head. “I messed up, Liliya.”

“Well, learn from it. What would you do differently next time?”

“I have no idea. I don’t know what I did wrong.”

Makka whined and thumped his tail against the couch as he nosed his way in closer to him. He wrapped his arms around him and tried to hold back the inexplicable tears.

“Are you staying tonight?” Her voice took on a rare, gentle tone.

“You don’t have plans with Antonio?”

“It’s fine. Stay here tonight. We can all have dinner together to celebrate your gold.”

He nodded. “Thanks.”

“It’s fine, Vitya. You didn’t do anything to him that anyone would fault you for so just let it go. He’s just one boy.”

He shook his head trying to hold the tears back, but it only loosened them further. “I messed up.”

***

A hopeful melody glistened over the ice, but the skater draped in slate and twinkling silver with gold lines that looked almost like Viktor’s blades crossing over his heart and wrapping around his waist looked more lost than hopeful. World’s was a tough stage for anyone to put a performance on and slips like that were unfortunately common. Viktor moved to continue on his way to yet another interview, but his steps mumbled over to the boards instead.

The skater’s steps were clean and light, spiraling the sequence all over the ice as though he were chasing a butterfly just outside his grasp. Viktor searched the boy deeper. There was something familiar about him. It was juniors skating now. He couldn’t say that he knew of any juniors specifically outside of the ones at his rink and he certainly wasn’t any of them. He looked up at the display that had his name scrawled below his performance. “Yuri Katsuki, Japan.” Viktor’s heart sank. It was the boy. It must be the same Yuri. The one who had walked away from him just a few months ago. The urge to get himself as far away from that massive failure as he could railed against the body locking him in place.

The skater set up a triple lutz but hesitated a little on the takeoff guaranteeing his crash. Still, he got right back up and set into a triple axel which he knocked out beautifully and followed up with a spread eagle into another triple axel followed by a double toe loop to make the combination. He didn’t have any hesitation there. Again, a hesitation before a double flip and another crash. Viktor smiled to himself. This Yuri didn’t like going backwards either. He was much more confident in the things he could charge into: axels, sequences, spins. His Yuri hated going backwards. It took him almost two years just to feel comfortable moving backwards at all. He said he hated how he had to twist around to see behind him and even then there was always a blind spot. When he learned that almost all of the jumps were started backwards, he had stared at him horrified, begging him to fix that terrible mistake. Viktor tried to reassure him that going backwards was easier because you have to land them backwards, so fewer revolutions were required, but Yuri would have none of it. He stuck to the bunny hops and waltz jumps that he could do forwards until Viktor relented and showed him the axel which he took to right away. It took much pleading and bribery on Viktor’s part to get him into his first toe loop and even more to push him to persist when the first few months of attempts all ended in a fall. Yuri didn’t usually need any encouragement to keep trying, but when he decided that whoever came up with the idea to make all the jumps backwards was an idiot, pushing him out of that idea was nearly impossible.

Viktor’s heart vanished from his chest and left his bare nerves trembling and cold. It couldn’t be a coincidence, could it? A Japanese skater named Yuri who hated going backwards. He shook his head. It couldn’t be his Yuri right in front of him. His Yuri wasn’t real. And this Yuri… this Yuri hated him. His Yuri wouldn’t hate him. No matter what he’d done to deserve it, his Yuri just wouldn’t. He wouldn’t just walk away from him. He’d yell at him for being an idiot. He’d sulk and pout until Viktor had made amends. He wouldn’t hate him so much as to just leave him. Not if he was still trying to meet him on the ice. This wasn’t his Yuri.

Crossovers brought the skater right past Viktor as he stretched one arm overhead and bent back towards him, reaching for him. Viktor found himself reaching back as he passed. His fist tightened at his side. It wasn’t his Yuri.

“Vitya,” Yakov’s voice startled him into dropping his hand, but his eyes stayed on the skater, “what are you doing? You were supposed to meet me for the interview. You’re keeping them waiting. Liya would have a fit.”

“Just a minute. I just want to see the end of his performance.”

“Why? He’s just a junior. Not doing that well either.”

He shook his head. “He’s beautiful.”

Yakov glanced at the screen displaying his info then glowered at him. “Don’t you dare, Vitka. I swear Liya will have your head if you even think about it. He’s seventeen. He may be of age in Russia, but it’s not just Russia watching you. If you start pursuing a seventeen-year-old boy, you’ll destroy everything.”

“It’s not like that.”

“It’s always like that!”

“Right, because I have such a history of scandalous affairs.”

“I’ve seen purer men than you fall to fluttering lashes. I swear it, Vitka, you leave that Katsuki boy alone. I know that look you have right now. You’re playing with fire by even watching him.”

“I already told you it’s not like that.” He turned away despite his words. He didn’t need Yakov to tell him that Yuri Katsuki was nothing but trouble for him.

***

The plum blossoms were gone, and it was still almost a year out for them to return, the worst time of year. Taking a break from practice, Viktor headed into the break room to grab something to drink where he found yet another Yuri sitting in a group of forlorn kids, his blonde hair flopping down along with his head. They all stared at him like a cursed soldier headed into battle. Why did Yuri have to haunt him everywhere he went? He considered just continuing on his path, but curiosity got the better of him. It was rare for this Yuri to look anything other than determinedly angry.

“What’s wrong, Yura?”

His head lifted just a bit to look up at him, and his rumpled hair fell just enough to expose one tortured eye. “I turn ten tomorrow.”

The other kids flinched as though him speaking it could pass the curse to them as well.

Viktor cocked his head. “Happy birthday? Why do you look so upset?”

“I’m going to be ten! Don’t you know anything?! Everyone knows! Yakov…”

A memory clicked in his mind. “Oohh… he doesn’t waste a day, does he?” Viktor laughed. “Of course, he wouldn’t.” He put his hand on Yura’s shoulder. “Sorry, little man. I tried my best.”

“You had something to do with this?!” Yura’s voice turned incredulous. “You- How could you?!”

Shit. He probably should have kept his mouth shut on that one. Yuris were nothing but trouble. “I’ll tell you what, I’ll bring you a big cake tomorrow, and we’ll all have a big party. What’s your favorite flavor?”

“Like hell I want a cake from you if you had something to do with Yakov turning into a monster as soon as we turn ten! Do you get kicks off of watching him torture us?”

“Wow, such language on such a small boy. I swear you have the wrong idea here. Is chocolate okay?”

“I think I totally have the right idea! And I hate chocolate!”

“Vanilla then?” He raised his eyebrows questioningly at Yura.

“I’ll get you back one day, I swear. I’ll beat you on the ice and steal all of your gold medals. You better not retire anytime soon, old man.”

“Vanilla it is.”

“Oh my god. Viktor Nikiforov.” The hushed tones of the voice behind him drew his attention away from the angry little Yuri who was most definitely not his Yuri. A guy with black hair spiked into a fauxhawk with bleached ends gaped openly at him.

Viktor turned and gave him his best smile and offered his hand. “Hi, nice to meet you…”

“Georgi. Georgi Popovich. Oh wow. I’m going to be training with Viktor Nikiforov. I mean I knew that but… wow.”

“Ah, Georgi! Nice to meet you. Yakov told me you’d be coming by today. Come on; I’ll show you around.”

He grabbed his recovery drink from the fridge and offered his spare to Georgi who caressed the bottle upon taking it. They chatted as Viktor showed him around, and he was nice, but making friends was a challenge when he always had to be on guard for what he said. They’d been skating for a couple of hours when Georgi came over to join him for a drink.

“So, who’s the girl?” Georgi asked.

“Huh?”

“The girl you’re pining for; the girl who broke your heart. You have lost love written all over your skating, but as far as I know, you’ve never had any big relationships so, I’ve been dying to know: who is this secret lover?”

Viktor smiled. “Sorry, I don’t know what you’re talking about. As you said, I’ve never had any big relationships.”

“I promise, love is sacred. I would never sully it by sharing such confidential secrets. I just really want to know who the muse worthy of fueling Viktor Nikiforov is. She must be a goddess.”

“I’m sorry, I really don’t have a different answer for you. Skating is so short of a career; relationships can wait until after I retire.”

“Really. You’ve never even had a single relationship yet? How tragic. Is the lost love love itself then?”

He smiled. “That’s a very poetic and inspired answer.”

Georgi shook his head. “No, it’s a person. You can’t feel that strongly about something you’ve never experienced, and I know love when I see it. I swear you can confide in me. We’re teammates now.”

“Sorry, there really is nothing to confide. The only love I know is in the ice.” Finally, his desiccated tongue tasted an honest answer.  

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The art above is once again the art of Clarinda0110. If you have a moment, please share your appreciation either in the comments or over on [Tumblr](http://clarinda0110.tumblr.com/post/175752266446/whos-that-boy-by-clarinda-last-piece-for-the-boy). Thank you!


	11. Chapter 11

Yuri sat in his tiny bedroom rereading the email that tied up the last loose end in his plan. “…granted a full scholarship.” That was it. School would be covered by his grades and less than impressive skating that they were somehow still impressed with and skating would be covered by sponsorships and whatever meager winnings he could get. He’d gotten Celestino Cialdini to agree to coach him, so he could hopefully make that leap into seniors before he aged out of juniors, but Celestino was in America in a brutally cold and foreign land called Michigan. He’d read the climate data several times to be sure he was reading it correctly, and his body shivered from the safety of his warm bedroom when he realized he absolutely was. And there were no onsens there either. How did people survive such a frigid wasteland?

He leaned back in his chair and looked up at Viktor on his wall. “You better hope I survive out there because if I turn into literal ice because of you, I will come back to haunt you, you stupid, forgetful jerk.” He sighed against the fresh cut in his chest. “You didn’t have to do it you know. Change. You were already perfect. I told you that, but I guess my opinion didn’t matter.” He put his head down on his folded arms but couldn’t resist telling him one more thing. “I’m going to beat you, you stupid, perfect jerk. I fought so hard to reach you, and you can’t even remember me, so I think I’m going to take that gold medal from you for all the trouble you put me through.” He sighed and dropped his head back down. “Stupid, Viktor.”

“Yuri! Dinner time!” his mom called from down the hall.

He groaned and readied himself to break her heart. He joined his family at the table and tried to eat the udon that already tasted like homesickness. Vikchan sat eagerly next to him waiting for any scraps to be handed his way.

His dad took a huge slurp of noodles then turned to him with his ever-present smile. “So, how’s my favorite skater doing today?”

“Well, I have some news. I’ve decided where I’m going to college.”

“Really? That’s wonderful! Where did you decide?”

His mom stared at him with the pleading brown eyes he’d inherited, and he could feel her silent begging for him to say somewhere, anywhere close.

“University of Michigan.”

“Michigan? Where’s that?” his mom asked.

He looked down at the table. “It’s… in America.” His mom’s muffled sobs made his face clench against the tears hers spurred. Vikchan whined and bumped his nose against his hand, and he obliged with as many pets as he could give him.

“America?” his dad gasped. “College there is so expensive.”

“I know. I already got a scholarship. We won’t have to pay as long as I keep my grades up.”

“How are you going to do that with skating? And what about skating?”

“There’s a coach there who’s really good. He’s coached several world champions, and he agreed to coach me. My sponsorships should be just enough to cover his fees and competition costs, and hopefully, my winnings will cover ice time. I’m only going to take classes two days a week, so it will take me a little longer to graduate, but that way I won’t risk my grades as much.” His face heated as his mom’s sobs increased at hearing him say it would be longer.

“Well.” His dad sat back and looked up at the ceiling. “It sounds like you’ve got everything settled then.”

“Yeah.”

His dad blew out a huge breath of air and put his hand on his back. “Good luck, Yuri. I know you’ll do well.”

“Thanks, Otousan.”

“You better kick lots of ass for making Kaachan cry for this.” Mari took a puff of the cigarette she had pulled out as soon as he made his announcement. “I’m going to miss you, little brother.”

“Yeah, me too.” He clenched his fists to slow their shaking. “I’m sorry, Okaasan.”

She shook her head and looked up, tears rolling down her plump cheeks from her fogged glasses. “None of that. I’m so proud of you. If America is where you need to go to make your dreams come true, then I’m glad you’re going. I’m just sad that means I have to say goodbye to my baby.” Her voice broke with the swelling tears. “You’re the best son I could have ever wished for, so I hope every one of your wishes comes true.”

“Thank you, Kaachan.”

“This calls for a celebration!” His dad jumped up to get the beer.

Mari and Yuri both groaned.

Mari leaned over and whispered to Yuri, “You hide the karaoke remote; I’ll hide the paints?”

***

“Yuri!” Celestino waved at him from across the rink. “Yuri, this is Phichit. Phichit, Yuri.”

“Hi!” Phichit waved with a singing smile.

“Hi! Nice to meet you.” Yuri waved back as he slid to a stop. “I hope you had an easy flight.”

“Woah… Your English so good! How? Teach me!”

Yuri laughed. “Just lots of practice. It gets easier with time. I guess we’re going to be roomies, huh?”

“Roomies?” His face scrunched trying to feel the right spots in his mouth in which the uncomfortable word would fit.

“Roommates. Um, living together.” He gestured between them and pushed his hands together.

“Ah! Roomies! Yes! Best roomies!”

Yuri had to laugh. He was so adorable. “Yeah, best roomies.”

“Great! You get along.” Celestino beamed and patted Phichit’s shoulder. “Take good care of him. I’m off for drinks.”

“Wait, what?” Yuri called after him, but he was already swishing his ponytail out the door. Yuri stared at the wide gray eyes in front of him watching Celestino leave with terror remembering all too well his first nights in America three years ago. “Do you want to skate or are you hungry?”

Phichit looked back at him, eyes still huge. “Hungry?”

“Food? Do you want food?”

He nodded and relaxed just a little again. “Yes.”

“What do you like?”

“Umm… What’s best here?”

Yuri smiled and stepped through the door. “Come with me.”

An hour later, Phichit was groaning on the couch and unbuttoning his jeans as he reached for another Coney dog. “So good. Can’t stop. Stop me please.”

“Sorry, you’re on your own.” He stuffed another forkful of fries, gravy-slathered, cheese-dotted, and overrun with fried egg yolk into his mouth.

“On my own…” Phichit pondered the strange phrasing in between bites.

“It means you’ll have to stop yourself because I can’t even stop myself.” He laughed and offered him the Styrofoam box for him to grab a bite of the sinful poutine.

He nodded and stuffed a bite in, catching the fries that didn’t quite make it and shoved them in to join the rest. “On my own is scary but tasty. So which skater your favorite?”

All the food he had just blissfully mowed down churned in his stomach as that clipped English phrase stepped him into a glob of memory that had dried into a tacky paste on a cracked vinyl floor. A gulp of the gingered spice of Verners helped settle his stomach enough to answer. “Viktor.”

He nodded. “Yeah, he everyone favorite.”

He shook his head and took another sip. No, just his. “What about you? Who’s your favorite skater?”

“You.”

“Haha, very funny. Who is it really?”

“You. I came here because you train with Celestino, so I think he must be good. I didn’t know I get to live with you. I almost die when I heard.”

“Wait. Really? How? Why? I’ve barely won anything since going into seniors.”

He shrugged. “I like the way you move on ice. You so… dancer. I want to dance on ice like you do. I have lots of poster.”

“You don’t.”

He squinted. “I… do. Did I say wrong?”

“No, I mean… It’s unbelievable that you would have posters of me.”

“I show you!” He beamed and then groaned at the horror of having to get up.

“No, no. It’s okay. I believe you. Just… wow. I can’t believe you have posters of me.”

“Why? You so good. So pretty on ice.” He smiled. “Here too.”

Yuri ducked his head as the blush rose. “Thanks.” He looked at the poutine left in his box and sighed. “I think we overdid it. I’m going to die if I eat one more bite.”

Phichit surrendered his half-eaten Coney dog to the paper tray and nodded looking blissfully sick.

“We’ve got early practice tomorrow. We should sleep.” He started wrapping up the leftovers for a soggy breakfast as Phichit rolled off the couch.

Later that night as he was starting to drift off to sleep, Phichit’s sobs pattered into his room. He wanted to leave him be so he wouldn’t have some stranger intruding on his personal feelings, but his own nights filled with aching loneliness drew him from his bed. He rapped softly on the door. “Phichit? I don’t want to bother you, but if you’d rather sleep with me tonight, you’re welcome to. I’ll leave you alone now, so if you want to join me, just come in.” He barely had time to turn before Phichit’s door opened.

He stood there, his cheeks still wet having not bothered to wipe them at all. “I hate being alone, and I miss my family.”

Yuri gave a wincing smile. “Yeah, I know. Come on.”

Phichit’s eyes widened as he took in the desaturated posters all over his walls in the dim light from the streetlights outside. “Wow. You really love Viktor.”

“I- I don’t think I’d… say that.”

He stepped in and walked around the room staring at each one. His fingers ran over the framed pictures. “You like… Viktor’s biggest fan.”

“No, not really. I’m not really his fan…”

Phichit laughed. “Right. It okay. Viktor is the best. It make sense that you be his fan.”

Fan… Was that really all he was to Viktor now? He was always Viktor’s fan, he was his fan before anyone else in the world was, but somehow the way Phichit said it… All he was to Viktor was his fan. Just one of the millions screaming his name. His heart thudded wrong and he winced as a new red line in his chest spilled open. “Yeah, Viktor’s fan. That’s me.” As much as it hurt, it suddenly gave him a new idea. He waved to the bed. “Go ahead, make yourself comfortable. I’ll be right there.”

“There… only one bed.”

“Yeah, sorry. It’s small. I think we’ll be fine though.”

“You don’t… mind?”

“No, not at all. Go ahead. I’ll be right there. I just have to do something.” He sat down at his desk and pulled out an old photo, slightly crumpled, of plum blossoms covered in snow. He flipped it over and started writing.

***

“Yuri …” His sister’s voice cracked over the phone. “I… I don’t know how to tell you this, and I’m really sorry for doing it now, but I thought you’d want to know… I’m sorry, but Vikchan’s dead.”

“What?” He sank back against the locker, the stun sending his senses crashing into each other. He tasted the ringing in his ears, smelled the dizziness- the stale chill of the locker room at his home rink after the hockey players have ravaged it with their sweat and unwashed jerseys, heard the clammy bumps crawling up his flesh, saw the words she used to explain that he’d been hit by a car flickering in the dark, and felt the aftermath of his ransacked body as he stepped onto the ice for his Grand Prix free skate. The drawers hanging askew in the furniture, the clothes strewn over the floor, the boxes upended and spilling their contents deemed worthless, and the tattered ends of wires covered every inch of his body framing the gaping hole where his performance used to be.

The call to his mother to announce his failure, the sudden kicking in of his door by one intimidatingly tiny Russian punk screaming at him to retire, the small brown dog outside that looked just like Vikchan, and the probing questions about his future that were confirmation that it was looking just as bleak to them as it was to him and were all capped off by a pain now so repeated the banality of the deeply honed edge was the defining experience.

His breath sucked in on automatic response at hearing the sound of Viktor’s voice. Only a second later his brain caught up to the fact that it was his name being called from Viktor’s lips. Hope whipped his head around to locate him then dove from the jagged cliff when it saw that the Russian Yuri was really the name on his lips. But then Viktor turned and sought him out from the crowd, his eyes holding a recognition he hadn’t seen in thirteen years, and his heart dove to catch his hope safely in its hands.

“You want to get a photo? Sure thing!” Viktor waved his hand airily.

His heart opened its hands and watched with sadistic indifference as his hope resumed its freefall. He turned and walked away. He’d been right all those years ago. Viktor was done with him because he’d never be good enough for someone like him.

***

“Yuri, please don’t go. I’ll miss you too much.” Phichit pleaded with him over their last meal together of poutine, Coney dogs, cherry pie and Varners to help it all go down easier. “We’re roomies, bestests. And you can’t quit skating. You’re too good to just quit like that.”

“I’m gonna miss you too. And I’m still thinking about skating. I hate the idea of leaving my career on such a bad note, but I don’t know how I can keep going. It’s just too much. But we’ll always be bestests. I promise.”

“But we won’t be roomies,” he wailed. “What will I do here without you? I’m not ready to say goodbye.” His phone held in the hand that wasn’t shoveling the best, worst food on the planet into his mouth was fixed on him to capture every ugly moment of their goodbye.

“You could find another roommate.”

“What?!” He gasped and clutched his chest. “You dare suggest that you’re… replaceable? You, Yuri Katsuki, are one in a trillion.”

His phone chimed to alert him to the uber driver that was there to bring him to the airport. “Sorry, Peach. Time for me to go.”

He hugged him, and Phichit put his foam box of goodness down to grab him tight and hold on as Yuri got up to get his suitcases. Phichit grabbed the second suitcase before he could let go and they waddled out to the curb together, a wrapped-up mess of limbs and suitcases stumbling over on the rough terrain.

“I’m gonna miss you so much.”

“Yeah, I’m gonna miss you too. It’s been amazing getting to know you over these last two years and- Oh my god, Peach, stop taking photos for one minute!”

“But… I’ll never be able to take photos of you again!”

“I’ll see you again. I promise.”

“At the Grand Prix? Worlds? Olympics?”

“I’ll see you, Peach. I promise. Video chat me anytime. And make sure you make this season amazing. I’ll be watching you, okay?”

Phichit finally released him and wiped his face. “Love you, bestest. Always. I still wanna watch you skate too.”

“Love you too, bestest.” He put his suitcases in the car and climbed in. “Take care of Ciao Caio for me.” He closed the door then rolled down the window. “And the duck!”

***

Back at home in his bedroom littered with his life from five years ago, he sat on the floor, his back against his bed, looking up at Viktor. He’d run away from his best chance of reaching him, let himself get out of shape, and skated one last farewell to the Viktor he once knew all to stop himself from making the one choice he knew he wanted to make, the one choice he’d made over and over again over thirteen years and had been nothing but agony.

_I have to skate on the same ice as Viktor again someday._

His phone chimed, and he sighed as he picked it up. What a fatally stupid heart.


	12. Chapter 12

_Help me._ Viktor stared at one Yuri Katsuki coming his way looking sadistically gorgeous with his hair slicked back, glasses off, and a game face sharp enough to sever the rationality of anyone in his path. He pivoted to Chris to duck out of his way and tried to think of a good conversation starter.

“You… looked amazing out there.”

“Really? When?”

“Just now, your performance. It was amazing.”

“Wow, fascinating. I didn’t know Viktor Nikiforov also had powers to tell the future.” His mouth drew into a tight line as he cocked an eyebrow. “I haven’t even skated yet, mon Cherie,” he drawled in his purring tone. “I’m up next.”

“I knew that. I meant your performance in the warm-up. It’s looking really amazing. I’m going to have to work extra hard today to beat you.”

Chris laughed. “Right. If you’ve got it so bad for Katsuki, why not just go talk to him? I’m certain he won’t reject you as long as you make it excruciatingly clear that you’re trying to get in his pants. The man’s a little dense in that department.” He groaned as he stretched out his back. 

“I don’t have a thing for him.”

He laughed. “Right, and I’m a virgin.”

“I don’t. It’s not… like that. I just like watching him skate. He’s so surprising, and he moves with such musicality.”

“Huh, can’t admit it that a small Japanese boy is strong enough to drag you to your knees? I thought Viktor Nikiforov was a lot more gracious than that. Just stop torturing yourself. Go talk to him. Trust me. He won’t reject you.” He clapped his shoulder. “I really hope you can see the future. I’m up.”

“Davai, Chris!”

Go talk to him. Chris doesn’t know anything. But he couldn’t fault him for that. How could he possibly know that Yuri Katsuki hated him? Sure, it was Viktor’s name he said in interviews when asked who his inspiration was, but he was clearly just choosing him because it was the safe choice. He always looked uncomfortable whenever he said it. He wasn’t nearly as good at hiding his true feelings as he was. And there were some elements in his skating that came from his own, but that was hardly unique. Nearly everyone on the ice copied him in some way or another. It was just good sense to use something proven to work. No, Yuri’s true feelings about him were revealed in every turn he made away from him. So, why couldn’t he stop himself from following his path?

***

Taking another sip of wine, he scratched Makka’s head mindlessly. His phone had been tossed to the side long ago, and now he just stared into his empty apartment trying to think of anything that would ease the heavy drag of the clock. It was too early for bed. Dinner was done. Nothing looked good on tv. Social media had been checked and rechecked. He could go out, but that required an energy he didn’t have to perform at the required levels. He grabbed the phone again and listed it up while he contemplated calling Liliya, but he had nothing really new to say to her. He dropped the phone back on the top of the couch.

“I guess I’ve got fan mail I should go through.”

Makka thumped his tail, and that was good enough for him. He heaved off the couch to Makka’s whining dismay. Apparently, he hadn’t considered the consequences of telling him to get the mail.

“Silly, dog.” He rubbed his head and came back a moment later with a huge box loaded with mail and the reply stationary. Snuggling back into Makka, he settled a tray over his lap and set about to work. He read through letter after gushing letter professing their undying love and devotion and admiration without even a flicker of reaction. With each word read, the aching knowledge that he was profoundly broken slid a little deeper. He wrote appropriately heartfelt replies with a steady hand and tucked them in with pre-autographed photos into oversized envelopes. He went to copy the next return address before he opened the envelope, but there was none. He cringed as he opened it. No return address was always hate mail.

The photo that fell from the plain envelope irrupted into his heart. Every flawed plum blossom he had ever drawn became shrapnel tearing through him only they didn’t settle as the implosion wore down; they circled and swooped and pecked his flesh, gaining life by consuming the remains of his. A crumpled photo of plum blossoms covered in snow sat frozen where it had fallen into his hand. No one knew but Yakov and Liliya and they would never reveal his hidden obsession. Truth battled truth in his mind as he flipped it over with a shaking hand. _You’re still my favorite, Viktor_ scrawled across the back.

“Yuri.”

***

In the two years since that photo arrived, Viktor’s concept of reality blew apart and then fused and then blew apart and then fused over and over again. He couldn’t make sense of what it meant. If it was really his Yuri, if it had really happened, why hadn’t he given him any way to contact him? How could he know how to reach him and not give him a chance to reach back? Were his mistakes really as unforgivable as he feared? If so, why had he said he was still his favorite? Was he just being cruel? Did he hate him so much for ending them that he wanted to make him suffer? The more questions he asked, the more he found himself being drawn to Yuri Katsuki. The Yuri who hated him and turned away still every time their paths intersected. He never made an attempt to talk to him past that single time. Not for casual chatter that every other skater engaged in, not to slide in next to him and whisper in his ear how much he couldn’t stand his existence, not even to make a show of proving how unhinged he could make the great Viktor Nikiforov become. Maybe he didn’t know. Or maybe he did. Maybe his revenge was to take him apart without so much as glancing his way. Maybe… maybe his Yuri really did hate him, and he was showing him that by using the very silence Viktor had cursed them with. Because if it had all been real, if his Yuri truly existed… Yuri Katsuki was his Yuri.

***

Viktor stood outside the locker room at the Grand Prix Final just before the free skate knowing Yuri was alone in there. He’d ducked in to take a phone call, and all the other skaters were out warming up or relaxing in the green room. It was a terrible time to do this, but he had so few opportunities like this, and he couldn’t take any more. He’d made his free skate this year specifically for him, calling out to him that he still remembered his promise, and if he gave him a chance, he had every intention of keeping it. Yuri made no reply.

He had no idea how to approach him; he just knew he had to. The truth was obviously not an option, and he had no idea how to approach someone who hated him. And why, for the love of everything good in this world, did he have to be so absurdly attracted to him on top of everything else? How was it even possible that he could want someone who hated him that badly? It didn’t really matter though, did it? The why’s were less important than the towering how facing him. He had no grand plan. There was really no way to plan for such a thing. There were too many directions it could go. All he could do was hope for the best. He pushed the door open, exposing Yuri’s sobs echoing off the lockers. Holding his breath, he let the door close and backed up around the corner. His heart raced as Yuri came out wiping his face across his warm-up jacket that quivered with his hyperventilating breaths.

Oh god. What was wrong? The urge to rush over and comfort him was suppressed by the distance between them. Following carefully, he made his way to the rink where he watched Yuri fall apart with the worst performance of his career. Viktor ached with every fall worse than if he had taken them himself.

As he was leaving the rink with Yura and Yakov, he spotted Yuri once again. Reporters had been speculating that he wouldn’t come back from that and with the way he was looking, Viktor was afraid they might be right. This might be his last chance.

_Come on, you damn coward. Try anything. Just keep it light. He’s already feeling awful._

He smiled as Yuri’s eyes locked on him for the first time in years and offered the most benign thing he could think of. “You want to get a photo? Sure thing!” He waved, trying to draw him in, but Yuri looked at him like he had just slapped him and walked away once again. He stood stunned as he watched him go then rushed to the car waiting to take him to the hotel and barely got the window up to separate him from the driver before the tears started.

And then a miracle happened.

Sixteen glasses of champagne happened. Viktor counted them. He couldn’t keep his eyes off of the sway settling into Yuri’s body and the loosening grip of his clothes. When Yuri removed his tie, shoving it into his pocket, and, with a champagne bottle in hand, danced his way right towards him, Viktor’s heart began to race.

“You.” Yuri raised his finger and circled it in front of Viktor. “I don’t like you.”

His heart clenched with sickness at hearing the confirmation of everything he knew but wished desperately wasn’t true.

Yuri’s finger slid past him to land solidly on Yura. He leaned into the angry blond and sneered. “You’re mean. You’re so little, but you’re so mean.”

Yura actually ducked his head and blushed for the briefest moment before his anger flared up. “You just suck, loser! I’m the better Yuri, and I’m going to prove it next year!”

Yakov’s red vein took over before Viktor could open his mouth. “Yura! You don’t talk to your competition that way! It’s disgraceful!”

Yuri put his hand up and patted Yakov’s chest leaving him sputteringly indignant as he took a swig from the bottle. “It’s okay. Let him say whatever he wants ‘cause I know he’s underestimating me. It’ll be fun to see the look on his face when I beat him.”

“What?! You say that you can beat me after that shitty performance?! I can beat you any day!”

“Alright. Beat me right now then.”

“Hah?! There’s no ice, idiot! And you’re wasted!”

Yuri swayed hard to the side and had to stumble to catch himself. “Doesn’t matter. I can beat you right here on the dance floor.”

“Whatever.” Yura folded his arms. “That’s stupid. I’m not having a dance off with you.”

“You scared?” Yuri grinned.

“What?! No, I’m not scared! I’d never be scared of a crybaby like you!”

“Prove it then. I think you’re a little baby chicken.” He grabbed Yura’s face in his hand and squished his cheeks. “Aww… little baby chicken. So adorable.”

“Get off of me!” He knocked Yuri’s hand from his face. “Fine. I’m gonna kick your ass and then laugh when you cry!”

Yuri slipped off his jacket and laughed. “Bring it, little boy.” He turned to glare at Yakov. “You… you’re mean too.” Tossing his jacket over Yakov’s head, he muttered something Viktor could only make out one word of, “… stealer.” As soon as Yakov ripped the jacket from his face, Yuri shoved the bottle into his hands. “Hold this too. Oh, wait. This is a formal affair. I’m not properly dressed.” He stuck his tongue out as he fished his tie from his jacket pocket and slipped it back on not anywhere close to being correct. Looking down to examine himself, he gave a satisfied nod. “Better.” Finally, his gaze locked on Viktor’s, and he pointed right at him this time. “And you… Viktor Nikiforov…” He shook his head and bit back his lips then turned around and headed for the DJ stand. “We need some real music up in here!”

Viktor’s heart lurched after him dying to hear those words he locked away. Why was he the only one he held back on? Was that a good thing or a bad thing?

 The Yuris took to the floor as a pulsing dance beat took over the room. It only took seconds to see who the winner of their battle would be. While Yura leapt about the room angrily beating his fists, Yuri tore it apart with some killer break dancing. The alcohol didn’t seem to affect him one bit as he spun over the floor and froze his body in precarious holds. Viktor found himself drawn closer and couldn’t resist pulling his camera out to capture the wickedly layered Yuri Katsuki.

Yura tried to fight back by ripping off some of Yuri’s moves, but Yuri just grinned and came up with harder ones until the crowd was chanting his name. Well, they could have been chanting either one of their names, but no one, not even Yura, doubted which one it really was. As the song ended, Yura stormed off while Yuri pumped his fist with exhilaration sloshed on his face.

His victory dance took on a new rhythm as Yuri began his new dance alone on the floor, not caring at all about the sideways stares and the voices tucked behind hands. Even though Viktor wasn’t anything close to drunk, his need to be close to Yuri began overtaking his inhibitions. He started at the edge testing out small dance moves, and when Yuri didn’t move away, he moved in just a little closer. Yuri didn’t seem to notice him, but slowly Viktor made his way to him. His racing heart covered his neck with beads of sweat, and Liliya’s voice that this was so far against the rules rang in his ear, but he needed to reach Yuri, and he would give up anything just to have one single touch of his warm cheek.

Falling in step with Yuri was easy, and soon he was matching his movements within arm’s reach. Yuri glanced over, and Viktor’s heart stopped. Yuri danced closer then stopped in front of him and just stood looking up. Viktor’s body charged with electricity created by the friction of his heart striving to live under Yuri’s gaze. Yuri’s fingertips brushed his. Yuri smiled and grasped his hand, and before Viktor could contain the surge of life within him, Yuri took him in his arms and dipped him low. His hand stroked down Viktor’s face then clasped behind his head as he whipped him back upright and pulled him tight into his arms. Yuri froze again looking up at him with both of their faces flushed and their hearts throbbing.

A soft, hesitant smile flickered onto Yuri’s face. “My Viktor.”

Viktor smiled and dropped his forehead to touch Yuri’s as he held his face between his hands. He sighed in relief in lieu of the tears he wanted to shed. “My Yuri.”

Yuri pulled him tighter and swayed them back and forth then retook his hand and slowly dipped him again, his gaze soft and held on his. He lifted him up wrapped up in his arms then spun him out to the end of his firm grasp. With an impish grin, he snapped him back then carried their dance around the floor.

Being wrapped up in Yuri’s arms… Viktor had never experienced warmth until then. He had felt heat from fireplaces and gentle hands but, compared to this, those had only burnt across the surface of his skin. Yuri’s warmth was solid and yielding, steady and rhythmic, penetrating and embracing. It filled him with a want stronger than any he had ever known, but it wasn’t the kind of want that was an empty yearning followed by a flood and then a vacant retreat. It was a want that filled him fuller and deeper and never reached a limit.

Yuri was fun. That was the biggest surprise. Yuri never showed any kind of a playful side in interviews or chatting with other skaters. The most he’d ever seen from him was a polite laugh at a reporter’s joke or nervous smiles, but now Yuri was laughing as he made his fingers into bullhorns, and Viktor stripped off his jacket to make a cape without a second thought. Their dance turned into matador and bull, and it suddenly didn’t feel like a surprise at all as they circled and lunged at each other around the floor. His Yuri was endlessly playful. He was always coming up with silly games like this for them to play or just being a goof to make Viktor laugh. Yuri slipped past him and poked his back then wrapped his arms around him.

“I got you.”

Viktor smiled and reached behind him to pull Yuri around to the front, cradling him in his arms while the light from the chandeliers sparkled in Yuri’s eyes. “Now, I’ve got you.”

He stroked his fingertips along Viktor’s cheek. “What are you going to do with me?”

Leaning down to put his lips to his ear, he drew in a breath of Yuri. Crème Brulee, toasted oak, and black pepper with a lingering charge of espresso. He nosed a little closer to his neck and drew in another breath to burn it into his mind so that sixty years from now when he’s forgotten everything else, the exact feel of Yuri’s body at the moment he realized he was holding the most precious thing he had ever held would weight his arms again. “I’m going to keep my promise.” Pressing his face closer and closing his eyes, he turned to press a lingering kiss to his warm cheek.

His smile grew wider and softer still. “Which promise would that be, Viktor?”

Wait. He didn’t remember? Was he wrong after all?

“Oi, loser! I want a rematch!” Yura came stomping in with his tie in his hand and glared at Yuri until his attention pulled away from Viktor.

“Go away. I already beat you. I’m dancing with Viktor.”

 “You didn’t beat me yet! There’s always a short program and a long program. I can still beat you!”

“That’s only for skating, dummy.”

“Yeah, well that’s how we’re going to do this one so let’s go! Unless you don’t think you can win.” Yura leaned into his face to sneer.

Yuri glanced up at Viktor then stroked his cheek and went to go join Yura. “You’ll watch as I kick his ass again, right?”

Viktor nodded and put his jacket back on to free his hands to take his phone out again. “I won’t take my eyes off of you.”

“Good.” He smiled then pointed his finger at him through a crooked glare. “Don’t you dare go anywhere.”  

“I’m picking the music this time. Yours sucked.” Yura stormed off to the DJ stand.

They started their dance again with both of them better than before. Yuri watched Yura while they danced then Yuri fell out of a hold as he started laughing but recovered enough to turn it into a spin on his back on the hard floors.

“You went and practiced, didn’t you?”

“What?! No!” Yura’s cheeks turned just a little red.

Yuri started laughing harder. “Oh my god! You did! You totally did! What did you go watch some YouTube videos or something?”

“You’re such a loser! Just pay attention to your dance so I can beat you the right way!”

He laughed and kicked up into a spin on his hands. He fell back into a crisp hold and winked at Yura. “Beating you is so easy. This is hardly a challenge.” He glanced over to Viktor and smiled when he saw him cheering for him along with the rest of the crowd. He got up and dove right over Yura who was on the floor trying out another move his body seemed unsure of and landed with a roll into another sick hold. He jumped up as the audience roared. “Anyone else? Someone give me a challenge here, please.”

“Oh, sweetie, I can give you a challenge.” Chris slinked over with a Cheshire grin. “I don’t know if you can handle it though.”

Yuri’s smile hardened off his face. “I can handle anything.”

“You’ve got it, sweet cheeks. Give me just a minute. I’ve got to get something from my room.”

“I’ll be here.” Yuri grinned and stepped back into a dance with Mila who had come up to challenge him.

They faced off with a side-by-side swing dance, but Yuri soon grabbed her to flip her over his shoulder and swing her between his legs while Mila squealed with delight. He left her woozy and wobbling onto Sara for support when Chris came back to pull him over to a pole he had set up under a low beam. Yuri’s eyes widened, and Viktor was sure he’d back out, but he unbuttoned his pants then turned to Yakov and tossed them over his shoulder with a pat. “Hold these too.”

“Why do you keep giving me your clothes?!” Yakov’s angry yell had just a hint of pleading.

Yuri narrowed his eyes and put his tie on his head, tightening it with a firm tug. “You know why.”

Yakov’s wrinkles folded and creased in several different directions as he tried to figure out how to respond, but Yuri wasn’t waiting for his response. Instead, he went to the banquet table to grab a bottle of champagne and refresh his drunken state. After a few good chugs, he turned back to Yakov and grinned until Yakov begrudgingly held out his hand.

“Thank you!” he chimed. He spun around searching for something and upon spotting Viktor, he leapt onto him and started grinding his hips against him. Viktor couldn’t say he minded, but he was surprised by the sudden change in his style, and he wasn’t sure if he was supposed to respond in kind.

“Viktor! My family runs a hot springs resort. When the season’s over, you should come visit. Hey, I got an idea. If I win this dance off, come to Hasetsu and be my coach! You’ll do it, won’t you, Viktor? Be my coach!”

Viktor gasped and his face heated with tears he couldn’t release as every single thing he had ever felt for Yuri slammed him at once, fresh with the energy collected during their long wait to be released from his tormented mind to live in his heart where they belonged. It was him. There was no way that this wasn’t the boy that he knew. Somehow, he had talked to him through a dream when they were little. No other answer was possible. But if Yuri didn’t remember their promises... Had he just forgotten? Did it only happen in Viktor’s mind? How? Why? Dreams are often forgotten upon waking. Maybe the memory is carried off with the dream. If he’s the only one that knows… What does he do about it? How would he even begin to explain it to him without scaring him off?

Yuri kissed his cheek then walked backwards to the pole making sure Viktor was keeping his promise to watch. He pulled his tie back down around his neck and took to the pole while the DJ put on a song befitting him. A few quick steps had him leaping onto the pole, his free hand combing his hair back. The muscles in his arm rippled as he pulled himself around the pole and landed with it squeezed between his thighs, and his body held out against gravity by that single hand and the power in his thighs. Viktor whined, helpless against the fantasies Yuri wove through his mind. He craved a taste of his luscious thighs to see if the pole had added the tang of metal and holding back from doing just that was the kind of exquisite torture only Yuri could create. He needed Yuri to write on him every word that defined him so he could have some hope of surviving him.

The roll of his hips led his turns around the pole and provided an anchor to the weightless stretch of his body into poses that each redrew perfection in Viktor’s mind. The perfection Viktor chased was airy and ephemeral and endlessly tantalizing without any satisfaction. Yuri’s perfection was supple and grounding, and when he came up swaying to the beat against him while unbuttoning his shirt one sedulous button at a time, his perfection was offered up as something that would always be within his grasp. It always had been, if he hadn’t been so blind, and the look in Yuri’s eyes promised it always would be. Cautiously, Viktor brought his hand under his drifting shirt and rested his fingers on Yuri’s bare hip. Yuri smiled and pressed closer as he let his shirt slip from his shoulders. Viktor groaned and grabbed him tighter with both hands, and the rippling muscles under his hands rolled into his body and dragged him further under Yuri’s weight.

“Help me,” he groaned into Yuri’s ear.

Yuri grinned wickedly and let his shirt fall to the floor. “No.”

He groaned again and pressed a pleading kiss to his neck. “Please?”

His hand snaked up his torso and wrapped around his tie, yanking him down to bring his ear to his lips. “No. I like you like this.” He turned around to watch Chris who had taken over the empty pole and ground his hips against Viktor’s as he arched back against him.

Taking the invitation, he let his hands wander his bare torso, his face buried in the crook of Yuri’s neck as the only anchor point he had left. Yuri sighed and deepened the roll of his hips.

Viktor joined his dance, and the ambrosial sway of their hips together weakened him further. “Help me,” he tried again.

“Never,” he promised.

Yuri’s eyes hardened as he watched Chris throw his challenge his way, and before Viktor could grasp a hope of keeping him close, Yuri was gone from his arms. His champagne bottle snatched back from Yakov, he was back up on the pole taking Chris’s challenge and standing right on top of it with a conquering look on his face. He smirked down at Chris and took a swig from the bottle then lifted himself off his ass to let him up and handed him the bottle. They battled each other for supremacy with playful smiles, both enjoying the satisfaction that comes from testing one’s limits. Yuri wrote another word across Viktor’s skin. Strong. It had been there before, but Yuri went over it with bold, thick lines as he held both himself and Chris in poses impossible to mere mortals.

Yuri kept glancing at Viktor and each look over seemed to push him harder. Viktor realized that Yuri was fighting so hard to win because he wanted his prize. He wanted Viktor to coach him. He wanted Viktor by his side. Watching Yuri fight with everything he had to keep him by his side carved the word faithful on his heart. Even if he didn’t remember, he was still fighting to keep his promise. He didn’t deserve Yuri with how careless he had been, but luckily, Yuri didn’t seem to agree.

Beaming as he shook Chris’s conceding hand, Yuri then left him the champagne bottle as a consolation prize and came bounding over to Viktor. “I won, so you’ll do it, right?”

Viktor smiled and took him back in his arms. “Of course. You didn’t have to beat Chris for that.”

“I wanted to prove I could. Prove I was enough for you. Win you back from the world.” He fell onto Viktor’s chest, and for a moment Viktor thought he was just snuggling close, but as his body slumped further he realized Yuri was past his limits.

“Come on. Let me get you back to your room.”

Yuri looked up with a smirk and wrote another word on Viktor’s skin. Cruel. “What are you going to do with me there?”

“Put you to sleep.” He poked his nose and then kissed it.

He pouted. “I didn’t turn you on enough?”

He choked just a little. “Um, no. That’s definitely not the problem. The problem, my dearest Yuri, is that you’re totally smashed. You’ll have to repeat that performance for me sometime when I can actually show you my appreciation.”  

He nodded. “I can do that.” Slumping against him again, he sighed. “Such a gentleman.”

“Alright, up you go.” Viktor lifted him into his arms and snuggled him close as Yuri wrapped his arms around his neck. “You’re so perfect, Yuri.”

He closed his eyes, his body slackening against Viktor’s chest. “My clothes,” he mumbled.

He laughed and carried him over to Yakov. “I’m surprised you remembered.”

“’Course I remembered. I love that suit.”

Viktor watched another few words scrawl across his skin. ‘No fashion sense.’ He smiled to himself and held him tighter.

Yuri woke up enough to glare at Yakov when they reached him. He held his hand out expectantly. “My clothes.”

Yakov sighed and grumbled as he went over to the chair where he had put them.

Yuri snatched his clothes from his hands with a glare when Yakov took too long handing them over. “Mine.” He sorted through his clothes then looked back. “My shirt?”

“You didn’t give that to me.”

He pointed to where it was still on the floor. “It’s over there.”

They stared each other down until Yakov stormed toward it grumbling the whole way and snatched it off the floor.

Yuri swiped it from his hands as he came back. “That’s mine too.” He grabbed Viktor’s tie. “And this. This is mine too.”

Viktor left a dumbfounded Yakov behind to bring Yuri to his room which took several trips up and down floors and hallways before Yuri remembered the right room number. Viktor was tempted to take him back to his own room, but the strength of his temptation demanded he resist it. Finally at Yuri’s door, he set him down so he could get the key in the slot. They stumbled through into the dark room, and he eased Yuri onto the bed.

“Where’s your phone? I want to give you my number.”

Yuri gasped and put his hands to his mouth covering a smirk. “Viktor Nikiforov wants to give me his number?” He looked unfairly beautiful splayed across the bed half-naked and with that smirk still showing in his eyes.

“I have been dying to give you my number for an extraordinary length of time.” He slipped the tie off of Yuri’s neck and put him below the covers. “Now where is your phone?”

“Um…” He looked around the room that was strewn with clothes and gear on nearly every open surface. “I have no idea.”

Viktor grabbed the pen from the nightstand and took Yuri’s arm. He wrote his number along the soft skin on the underside of his forearm, stroking his thumb along it as the numbers etched onto his skin.

Yuri giggled. “That tickles. Why not use paper?”

“You’ll lose it.”

He looked around his room and nodded. “Yeah. I would.”

He finished writing and brought Yuri’s hand up to kiss his palm. “You’ll call me?”

“Yeah. I’ll call you.”

“You promise?”

“Of course, I promise,” Yuri reached up and after a slight hesitation of his hand, combed his fingers through Viktor’s hair, smiling gently as the strands slipped through his light grasp, “Viktor.”

Viktor closed his eyes and clutched Yuri’s hand to his chest. “Say it again.”

“I promise, Bii-ik-tor-u.”

He opened his eyes with a quiet gasp and studied Yuri’s sweet smile below his heavy eyelids. He must remember. He sent the picture after all. They could clear everything up when Yuri called. He didn’t want that memory weighted with Yuri’s drunken, half-asleep state for either of them. He ran his thumb gently over Yuri's precious smile as he leaned down to kiss his cheek. Yuri’s smile widened under his thumb as he used his grasp on Viktor’s hair to tug him down enough to leave a kiss on his cheek in return.

It was nowhere near enough, but Viktor released his hand with a kiss to his knuckles and forced himself to the door as Yuri turned onto his side and buried deeper under the covers. “Sweet dreams, my beautiful Yuri.”

“Hey, Viktor?”

“Yeah?”

He peeked up from his pillow. “I’m so happy right now.”

Viktor’s eyes wavered as Yuri’s simple statement defined the emotions churning in him now. “Yeah, me too. You have no idea how happy I am.”

“Pretty sure I do.” His words came out smushed from the pillow as he dropped off to sleep.

Viktor spent the next three months replaying those blissful moments over unrelenting agony ‘cause you know what else happened? That cruel man woke up the next morning and washed off his number and forgot every. Single. Moment.

***

“What a jerk.”

“Right?” I took a sip of my beer then shook my head. “But I deserved that.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“Hold on. The story’s not quite done. So, I spend three months in utter agony over this boy and then,” I smiled and closed my eyes feeling the exact moment, “then the plum blossoms came back once again, and this time they brought his reply. He waited the whole season to give it, and I’d like to think he did that because he knew that I wouldn’t have believed it if the plum blossoms hadn’t carried it in.”

“Or, you know, it was all a horrible mistake caused by the three deviants who uploaded it.”

I shook my head. “Nope. Plum blossoms did it. And that was that. I flew in as soon as I could, and unfortunately, I just missed the plum blossoms, but they had already done their job, and when I lamented that I had missed them, my sweet Yuri fed me some plum blossom truffles that were absolutely divine,, and he gave me another promise to see them with me next year and honestly, that was better- hearing my Yuri make another promise to me because I knew that I could count on that more than anything else in my life. And then I messed it all up. Again.”

“What did you do?”

The corner of my mouth pulled down. “I took Chris’s advice.”

“That… wow. You must have been desperate.”

“I was so exquisitely desperate. You have no idea. I came on a little strong, and I scared him away. I think I know now where I went wrong.”

“Do you?” He cocked his eyebrow at me.

“Yeah. My first horrible mistake was not seeing how precious he was to me and not holding onto him with both hands thirteen years ago. My second and third and five hundredth mistake was not considering any other angle like one that maybe included him feeling offended that I didn’t remember him.”

“That… seems fairly obvious. Took you six years to figure that one out, huh?”

“I couldn’t see through my past mistakes to see the new ones I was making. I came on too strong for the same reason. I was so scared of losing him if I didn’t grab him tight enough that I couldn’t see his perspective. I know I tend to intimidate people, but I didn’t think I could intimidate him because he’s my Yuri, and he knows me better than anyone only I wasn’t someone he knew anymore.”

“Yeah, that sounds right. Could also be because his childhood friend was suddenly trying to get in his pants first thing upon meeting him again.”

“Okay, okay. I mess up a lot, yes?”

“So much. Like so so so much. I’ve never met anyone who messes up quite like you do.”

“So mean.” I shook my head at his cocky smirk. “In my defense, banquet.”

“Fair enough.”

“Anyways, well, you know how the rest of the story goes only you don’t know this part.” I spun the gold ring on my finger to give something to do to my trembling hands. “You don’t know how terrified I am right now because he might change his mind on our happily ever after. He might decide that my story is just too strange, that I’m insane for even entertaining it. He might think I’m a creep or something, but it’s just too real.” I flinched and stared down at the golden promise wrapped around my finger to find the strength required for faith. “I’m sorry that I’m asking you to accept something I know is nearly impossible to believe, and I can’t even begin to explain why or how even after a lifetime of debating that very question myself, but I couldn’t take the chance that you might find out this story on your own much later and then hate me for not confessing what exactly this was built on and my years of obsession.”

He sat back in the booth and slowly downed another gulp of beer then wiped the foam from his lip. “That’s quite the story, Viktor.” He took another sip and closed his eyes, lifting his face to the flaking ceiling. “I’ve got a story for you now.” He looked back at me, a smile in his warm, brown eyes. “This is a story where reality snags on the craggy edges of dreams. I swear that everything I’m going to tell you is the truth as I know it, but maybe I don’t know anything at all.” He leaned in and set his mug down carefully, eyeing its landing like it was the Apollo landing on the moon. Yuri’s smile grew as he took my hand, warm and firm in his loving grasp. “Let me tell you about the boy in the ice.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again to Clarinda for everything she did for this story and to everyone who took the time to read this. I hope you enjoyed it! Questions and comments are welcome.


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